Four Hundred Years of Shakespeare in Europe.(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-JUL-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Modern Humanities Research Association

Four Hundred Years of Shakespeare in Europe. Ed. by LUIS PUJANTE and TON HOENSELAARS, with a foreword by STANLEY WELLS. Newark: University of Delaware Press. 2003. 274 pp. 42 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 0-87413-812-4.

This important collection of European studies of Shakespeare is a record of an international, or rather intercultural, conference held at Murcia, Spain, organized by a number of scholars particularly interested in a dialogue between English-speaking and 'foreign' Shakespearians. The essays cover a wide range of issues, made more relevant by their context, even where they appear as simple case studies. Perhaps most typical is Dirk Delabastita's contribution, 'More Alternative Shakespeares'; it is 'trenchant, challenging and somewhat chastening', as Stanley Wells says in his generous and keen-sighted foreword, where he also speaks of the 'absorption of Shakespeare into the bloodstream of European civilization' (p. 9). Speaking no doubt for many European Shakespearians, Delabastita points out, however, that there is still a deplorable gulf separating the English-speaking community of Shakespearians (including all...

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