Abstract
Schofield’s chapter assesses the legacy of the German myth of unser Shakespeare (our Shakespeare) in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It explores the development of the myth of Shakespeare as the German national poet, and the ways in which this idea was challenged as it entered into transnational circulation. It reveals how figures such as the dramatist Brecht, the director Thomas Ostermeier, and companies such as the Bremer Shakespeare Company have supported the dissemination of the myth of a German Shakespeare. The chapter ultimately traces how German Shakespeare evolved into a broader myth of German transgressive theatre, itself frequently conflated with the notion of a radical European performance aesthetic.
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Notes
- 1.
The title of this section comes from John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields” (1915). See: McCrae (2009, 3).
- 2.
The Christmas advertising campaign was by the UK supermarket Sainsbury’s. See: Sainsbury’s (2014).
- 3.
All translations from German throughout this chapter are by the author.
- 4.
See also Bettina Boecker’s Chap. 2 in this volume on the myth of Shakespeare’s linguistic transcendence.
- 5.
See also Dan Venning’s Chap. 5 in this volume on Tieck and the German tradition.
- 6.
The author would like to thank Sebastian Kautz for his permission to cite his translation. See also the discussion of this sequence in my review of the play for the official Globe documentation of the festival in Farr and Schofield (2013).
- 7.
For more on this aspect see Farr and Schofield (2013, 289–90).
- 8.
See also the commentary in Farr and Schofield (2013, especially 287).
- 9.
Jörder (2015) takes the form of a book-length interview with Ostermeier by Jörder. The words cited are thus those of Ostermeier.
- 10.
This is one of two important new volumes that consider Ostermeier , but which were published after the submission of this chapter. Boenisch and Ostermeier (2016) is a new English-language volume of Ostermeier’s writings, published alongside commentaries from collaborators and an in-depth look at Richard III and An Enemy of the People, while Boenisch (2017—first published 2015) explores Ostermeier within the wider context of Regietheater , innovatively considering Regietheater as part of wider European intellectual and philosophical traditions.
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Schofield, B. (2018). Shakespeare Beyond the Trenches: The German Myth of unser Shakespeare in Transnational Perspective. In: Mancewicz, A., Joubin, A. (eds) Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance. Reproducing Shakespeare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89851-3_6
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