Скачать или смотреть Jeffrey Wilson, "Why Shakespeare?"

The third lecture in the 2026 'Humanities and Popular Culture/Counterculture Speaker Series'.

Shakespeare, we have been told, is extremely important. You may agree or disagree, but do you know why Shakespeare matters to so many people in so many ways? Why, of all the dead white male options, did England take Shakespeare as its literary figurehead? Why does every high school in America assign Shakespeare? Why so many conspiracy theories about who wrote the plays? Why did the British government decide to pay £1.5 million to have his works translated into Mandarin? Why do cultures around the world with no love for England keep coming back to Shakespeare? In this talk, Shakespeare lovers and haters alike are invited to consider the question of his popularity by looking into the relationship between his methods of artistic creation and the values of the modern world.