
The Meaning of the Bones - dnetesn
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/11/02/the-meaning-of-the-bones/
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U2407_U0003
Shakespeare is so popuar because he's the most popular playwright of the
current lingua franca of the world. That's all there is to it.

And I say that as someone who absolutely adores Shakespeare and who's from the
country that had the first ever Shakespeare society (hint: it's not an
anglophone one).

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johan_larson
> Perhaps the most miraculous thing about Shakespeare is that, through the
> accidents of history, he’s come to form a global point of reference.

Is he really a "global point of reference"? I'm not at all confident I could
drop a reference to, say, Macbeth or Hamlet when dealing with people from
India or China. Using the high-points of American popular culture like Luke
Skywalker or Superman seems a lot safer.

I'd be interested to hear from folks from outside the Anglosphere on this
point.

~~~
cafard
Somewhere around the house, I have a copy of Samuel Johnson's prefaces to
Shakespeare's plays, edited by an Indian professor. Now, I can't at all speak
to the case of China.

~~~
inimino
Chinese people generally hear of Shakespeare in school but few will have read
him.

