‘Richard Wilson’s meticulously researched, powerfully argued and brilliantly written account of Shakespeare’s 20th-century fascist followers is not just an important but a genuinely essential book.’ Robert Shaughnessy, Guildford School of Acting, UK
In this illuminating book Richard Wilson demonstrates how in the 20th century Shakespeare’s plays and poems were persistently misread as documents which voiced the fascist sympathies of their author. Wilson argues that the version of Shakespeare this caricature produced – authoritarian, jingoistic, racially intolerant, misogynistic – was viewed with satisfaction by many of the leading figures of the century’s cultural establishment in Britain and America, while noting striking cases of the same bias in Germany and France.
Some of the names this book focuses on will surprise: many of the right-wing political views or leanings of the prominent figures discussed have been left unexplored or ignored: from A. K. Chesterton, who was both editor of the British Union of Fascists’ newspaper Blackshirt and former manager of press and publicity at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, to celebrated Shakespeareans such as G. Wilson Knight and writers, artists and theatre practitioners including W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, Edward Gordon Craig and Marshall McLuhan. At a time when democracy is under threat, populism is on the rise and far right views are increasingly prominent in our political discourse, Richard Wilson’s book makes an especially vital contribution to Shakespeare scholarship.
Foreword, Roger Holdsworth (University of Oxford, UK), Robert Stagg (University of Birmingham and University of Oxford, UK) and David Thacker (University of Bolton, UK) Introduction: Blackshirt Shakespeare Chapter 1. All Perform Their Tragic Play: Yeats Goes to Stratford Chapter 2. Hamlet in Weimar: Gordon Craig and the Nietzsche Archive Chapter 3. Dance of Death: Lawrence and the Morris Men Chapter 4. Memory Theatre: The Bad Demons of Frances Yates Chapter 5. Broken Coriolanus: Eliot's March on Rome Chapter 6. Black Swan: Shylock and the Chestertons Chapter 7. Crooked Cross: Wilson Knight and the Sun-Wheel Chapter 8. What Light Through Yonder Window Breaks: Marshall McLuhan's New Dawn Chapter 9. Operation Sea Lion: Carl Schmitt and the Scepter'd Isle Chapter 10. Bad Faith: Clara de Chambrun and Le Grand Will Epilogue: Shakespeare and the Merchant of Hamburg Notes Select Bibliography Index
Richard Wilson is the Sir Peter Hall Professor Emeritus of Shakespeare Studies at Kingston University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. Roger Holdsworth is a member of Linacre College, University of Oxford, UK. Robert Stagg is Assistant Professor of English and Director of the New Variorum Shakespeare at Texas A&M University, USA. David Thacker is a theatre, film and television director and Professor of Theatre and Film, University of Greater Manchester, UK.
Reviews for Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers: Modern Friends
Richard Wilson’s meticulously researched, powerfully argued and brilliantly written account of Shakespeare’s 20th-century fascist followers is not just an important but a genuinely essential book: one that includes in its ranks not only known outliers and eccentrics but some of the most celebrated and influential figures in the Shakespeare business. With a cast that includes Edward Gordon Craig, G. Wilson Knight, Philip Larkin and Frances Yates, Shakespeare's Fascist Followers: Modern Friends assembles the devastating evidence of a modernist, fascist Shakespeare that is more deeply embedded in the critical and theatrical canon than many would care to admit; it is hard-hitting and also scathingly funny. * Robert Shaughnessy, Guildford School of Acting, UK * A fascinating tour of the darker side of Shakespeare’s political afterlife in the 20th century. * Andreas Höfele, University of Munich, Germany *
