SHAKESPEARE’S AMERICAN JOURNEY
SHAKESPEARE’S AMERICAN JOURNEY

Summary/Abstract: The paper—basically attempting to answer, at least partially, the question in the second epigraph, by Georgiana Ziegler of the Folger Shakespeare Library—is made up of several sections and subsections, illustrating Shakespeare’s “journey” (i.e. passage, course, itinerary, circuit, progress, tour, voyage, parade…) from 16th -17th century Britain to 17th -21st century America: facts and figures on Shakespeare and America, American Shakespeare “firsts,”(editions, stages, actors and companies, theaters, festivals, pageants…); Shakespeare anniversaries; Shakespeare societies, associations and publications; Shakespeare in American schools and colleges; trivia… Certain such “facts” get to be repeated from section to section, but this only comes to emphasize the main thrust of the critical effort: that of including as many references as possible in order to underline the “Englishman’s” central role in a culture that is mostly embodied in a language that he helped modernize and stabilize as such, for a world that he “invented”; and hence such claims/titles as “Our Shakespeare,” “America’s Shakespeare,” “American Shakespeare” or “Shakespeare for America.”

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