In a society obsessed with political correctness and progressiveness, nothing is sacred – not, it seems, even William Shakespeare. It transpires that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which owns a number of buildings in the bard’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, is working on plans to ensure the writer’s place of origin will be ‘decolonised’. The move, as reported by the Telegraph, follows concerns that depicting Shakespeare as one of the greatest playwrights ‘benefits the ideology of white European supremacy’. Er, right.
In a bid to push a ‘more inclusive museum experience’, the Birthplace Trust has announced it will distance itself from Western views on the poet and decolonise its vast collection. The organisation has lamented that some of its archival items may contain ‘language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise harmful’ and hopes to explore ‘the continued impact of Empire’ on its collections, the ‘impact of colonialism’ on world history and how ‘Shakespeare’s work has played a part in this’. As if there aren’t better uses of time, eh?
The move follows the publication of a research project between the trust and University of Birmingham academic Dr Helen Hopkins in 2022. This concluded that presenting the playwright as a ‘universal’ genius helped to present European culture as the gold standard for art despite, the report noting, Shakespeare being a symbol of ‘British cultural superiority’ and ‘Anglo-cultural supremacy’. Apparently praising Shakespeare is part of a ‘white Anglo-centric, Eurocentric and increasingly “West-centric” worldview that continue to do harm in the world today’. You couldn’t write it…
The Bard of Avon has been a regular target for progressive campaigners, with a number of his works receiving in recent years trigger warnings for racism and misogyny. London’s Globe Theatre even ran seminars on ‘Anti-Racist Shakespeare’, encouraging participants to focus on the idea of race in his plays. As the playwright himself once wrote: ‘To thine own self be true.’ Reframing history hardly upholds these principles…
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