By
the end of the eighteenth century, English national identity could be said
to consist of two seemingly trivial preoccupations: the jealous appropriation
of Shakespeare and, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "the taking of toast and tea."
Citing these as constitutive of national identity may seem to miss the
mark; but their significance is tied to the larger economic and social
trends of this period. In the 1760's, England's status as a world power
had shifted dramatically. With the acquisition of colonies abroad came
an immense expansion of trade. At the same time, there was a tremendous
upsurge of nationalism at home. Is it only a coincidence that (the English)
Shakespeare was construed as the father of world literature par excellence
at the same time that Britain fashioned herself as the mother of a global
empire? The Stratford Jubilee of 1769 sought to celebrate the immortal
Bard; instead, it reflected the manner in which Shakespeare had been appropriated
and internalized by the English. Ironically, the result had little to do
with Shakespeare and much more to do with forging a distinct English identity.
If
nothing else, the Jubilee established one thing: while Shakespeare's reputation
rested on his ubiquitous cultural presence and not the achievements of
his works, his name was synonymous with what it was to be British. Whether
one knew his plays or not did not matter. Nor did it matter that not a
single Shakespeare play was performed (or even quoted) at the Jubilee.
The congregants were gathered to celebrate their Englishness. No
single person represented the scope of this national identity better than
the best of their kind. There was a need for a national god and Shakespeare
was installed to fill the vacancy. Garrick's Ode to Shakespeare
spelled out the Bard's qualifications for national embodiment: his moral
sensibility was unmatched, his spirit transcended bounds of time and space,
his "truths" were universal and England's were the same.
The
central problem of Shakespeare deification becomes evident here. We have,
on the one hand, claims to universality, and on the other hand, a nationalist
appropriation. How can Shakespeare be both timelessly universal and uniquely
English? The details of the Jubilee highlight the fact that the national
norm being worked out operated on exclusionary principles. In Garrick's
immensely popular play The Jubilee (based on the actual event),
Frenchman, Italians, Irishmen, and aristocrats are all excluded from and
ridiculed at the festivities because they can not understand Shakespeare.
They are all, as Michael Dobson writes, "beyond the pale" (Dobson, 220).
English identity as figured by Garrick's appropriation of the Bard rejects
even the people of Shakespeare's own rural province. Garrick's play is
intended for metropolitan audiences, who constitute the socially eligible,
and not the country yokels who are too stupid to understand the native
words of their own kind. The jubilee claimed that Shakespeare transcended
the limitations of the country lot he was born into; accordingly, the national
Shakespeare can not be too closely associated with the specificity and
indistinction of his birthplace, but must be made England's own, the god
of our idolatry.
The
success of the Jubilee's canonization relies on a gross cultural amnesia.
Shakespeare had to be denied the connection to his texts, and England had
to deny the existence of any area except London. Shakespeare had to be
idealized (and literally forgotten) in order to fit the national past and
the commercial middle-class present. The stage directions that conclude
Garrick's play reflect the confusion that riddled Shakespeare's stage:
