The Book Club: why America loves Shakespeare

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

In this week's books podcast I'm joined from across the Atlantic by the eminent Shakespearean James Shapiro to talk about his new book Shakespeare in a Divided America, which discusses the myriad ways in which America has taken Britain's national playwright up as its own; and then used him as a lightning-rod for the deepest issues about its own national identity - issues of masculinity, race relations, immigration and assassination. Jim talks about why a country founded by theatre-hating, Brit-hating Puritans fell in love with a British playwright; how Lincoln was the greatest reader of Shakespeare in American history; about whether America is the purest repository of Shakespeare's language; about how a beef between two Shakespeare actors once led to light artillery being deployed in downtown Manhattan - and how Ulysses S Grant may have been the greatest Desdemona the theatre never quite had.

The Book Club is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor. Hear past episodes here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Book Club is brought to you in association with Charles Stanley Community, providing our clients, colleagues and friends with practical supporting conversation.
0:07.6	Find out more at Charles Stanley Community.
0:15.5	Hello, welcome to The Spectator Books Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator,
0:21.1	and I'm joined this week by the great Shakespearean Professor James Shapiro, author of 1599,
0:27.0	a year in the life of William Shakespeare, and 1606, William Shakespeare and the Year of King Lear.
0:33.0	James was going to be in London to do a book tour for his new book, Shakespeare in a divided America.
0:38.2	Unfortunately, he wasn't able to cross the Atlantic for reasons that we'll all know.
0:42.2	And we're very lucky to have him joining us down the line from his home.
0:45.7	Now, James, welcome.
0:46.9	Your new book is called Shakespeare in a divided America.
0:52.3	And you've turned your attention from specific, you know, micro histories
0:55.9	of years in the life of Shakespeare in his own world to look a bit more at the cultural reach
1:01.3	of Shakespeare on the other side of the Atlantic. Now, the first thing to ask, I guess,
1:06.3	because Shakespeare, you know, as your book shows, is woven through these important moments in American
1:11.2	history. It seems very odd on the face of it, as you acknowledge in your introduction, that this
1:17.3	British English playwright has become the sort of so important and woven so deeply into
1:25.1	America's myths, because, you know, you're a Puritan country in the first place
1:28.2	where theatres were not a big thing, were kind of frowned on, and we're rejecting everything to
1:34.4	do with the English was a kind of part of the country's foundation myth. How does that come about?
1:39.6	If you think about it, we went to war with you in 1776 and achieved independence. And there was every likelihood
1:49.4	that we would achieve literary independence as well. But having fought another war with you,
1:55.9	about three or four decades later, you would think that lesson would been learned. It's a mystery to me why Shakespeare
	...

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