Happy Birthday, Shakespeare
Germany too is celebrating the 450th anniversary of the great English playwright’s birth.
“Shakespeare”, wrote the playwright Ben Jonson, “is not of an age, but for all time”. And boundless too are the fans of the English genius, who was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564. In Germany, Shakespeare has been of great importance since at least the eighteenth century Enlightenment. And the German Shakespeare reception has produced odd effects. During the period of German Romanticism, there were some critics who thought that the work of the British poet is closer to the German than to the English soul. This view was not well-received across the Channel.
The contemporary German enthusiasm for Shakespeare, who is being honoured all across the country, is different. On the front page of its special supplement in spring 2014, the weekly newspaper Die Zeit called him “the greatest”. The Bard’s plays are already in the lead in German theatre productions, but in the year of the 450th anniversary of his birth they have been joined by symposia, festivals and book publications such as Unser Shakespeare (i.e., Our Shakespeare) by the renowned Shakespeare translator Frank Günther.
Quite in the spirit of the anniversary is the 24th Shakespeare Festival at the Globe Theatre in Neuss, North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1991 a replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has stood on the racecourse in Neuss, near Düsseldorf. Here the plays of the Elizabethan master are brought to life every summer. In 2014 the festival will present 13 productions from Spain, England, Hungary and German. And the leading German actress Katharina Thalbach will commemorate the legacy of the poet, who also gave the world a matchless sequence of sonnets, with a reading. Also celebrating its anniversary this year is the German Shakespeare Society. Founded in 1864, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, it is one of the oldest literary societies of Europe. Its approximately 2,000 members are dedicated to the “preservation and promoting of Shakespeare in the German-speaking world”. Their activities include the publication of a yearbook, the support of translations and study editions, and hosting a celebration of the Bard’s anniversary.
