Greece Reinvented: Shakespeare’s “Greek Plays” as a Subgenre

Wu Yarong; Hao Tianhu

doi:10.18778/2083-8530.30.11

Authors

Wu Yarong Anhui University, Hefei, China https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9583-2933
Hao Tianhu Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7077-1818

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-8530.30.11

Keywords:

William Shakespeare, Greece, Greek plays, subgenre, the Eastern Mediterranean, Other, cultural studies

Abstract

This article justifies the addition of “Greek Plays” as a subgenre to classify Shakespeare’s works. The six plays (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Timon of Athens, Two Noble Kinsmen, The Comedy of Errors, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and Troilus and Cressida) in this subgenre are defined as adaptations of ancient Greek literature, staged in Greek or closely related settings, and featuring characters from Greek mythology and history. Through a review of the research history of Shakespeare’s Greek plays and an exploration of interactions between Englishmen and Greeks, the authors provide a brief but comprehensive reading of his Greek plays and argue that Shakespeare juxtaposes ancient Greece with its early modern counterpart—a territory of difference and the Other—on the very edge of Europe, penetrated by the alien East and Islamic cultures. Greece is a land of ambiguity, reinvented by Shakespeare as a liminal space, and characterized by a mixture of humanist admiration for the grandeur of ancient Greek civilization, cautious respect for and alertness to its pagan origins, a profound desire for economic benefits in the Eastern Mediterranean, and Christian apprehensions and anxieties in Englishmen’s encounters with the Turks. By introducing “Greek Plays” as a subgenre, this paper not only helps to enrich our understanding of Shakespeare’s portrayal of “a world elsewhere” from multifaceted cultural perspectives but also attempts to expand the existing territory of Shakespearean studies.

Author Biographies

Wu Yarong, Anhui University, Hefei, China

Wu Yarong, Ph.D., Zhejiang University, is a lecturer at the School of Foreign Studies, Anhui University (Hefei, China). Her research focuses on early modern English literature.
Hao Tianhu, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

Hao Tianhu, Ph.D., Columbia University, is Qiushi Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Zhejiang University, China. Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar (2023-2024). He specializes mainly in early modern English literature and comparative literature. In addition to many Chinese articles and several translations, his publications include three Chinese monographs (2014, 2020, 2022) and a number of English essays. His English monograph Commonplace Reading and Writing in Early Modern England and Beyond has just been published by Routledge (2024). He has served on the Executive Committee of the Milton Society of America. He is the editorial board member of Milton Quarterly and Multicultural Shakespeare and the editor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He also edits two book series for Zhejiang University Press.

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