Not Shakespeare: Bardolatry and Burlesque in the Nineteenth Century

Burlesque has been a powerful and enduring weapon in the critique of legitimate Shakespearean culture by a seemingly illegitimate popular culture. This was true most of all in the nineteenth century. From Hamlet Travestie (1810) to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (1891), Shakespeare burlesques were a vibrant, yet controversial form of popular performance: vibrant because of their exuberant humour; controversial because they imperilled Shakespeare’s iconic status. Richard Schoch, in this study of nineteenth-century Shakespeare burlesques, explores the paradox that plays which are manifestly ‘not Shakespeare’ purport to be the most genuinely Shakespearean of all. Bringing together archival research, rare photographs and illustrations, close readings of burlesque scripts, and an awareness of theatrical, literary and cultural contexts, Schoch changes the way we think about Shakespeare’s theatrical legacy and nineteenth-century popular culture. His lively and wide-ranging book will appeal to scholars and students of Shakespeare in performance, theatre history and Victorian studies.

• This book is on nineteenth-century Shakespeare burlesques - it redefines the field of Shakespeare performance history • Previously unpublished illustrations, including rare photographs of burlesque performers • Schoch’s previous book - Shakespeare’s Victorian Stage (CUP, 1998) also the first on its topic - received excellent reviews

List of illustrations; Acknowledgments; Note on texts; Introduction: ‘New Readings for Unconventional Tragedians’; 1. ‘Vile beyond endurance’ : the language of burlesque; 2. Shakespeare’s surrogates; 3. Shakespeare in Bohemia; 4. Politics ‘burlesquified’; Bibliography; Index.

‘… this book clearly establishes its author in the foremost rank of scholars of the Victorian stage … Schoch\'s edition is a tremendously useful supplement to current awareness of the variety of Victorian theatrical forms …’ Theatre Notebook