Existing comment:
Modern American Writers
"Shakespeare's black... Not yet."
-- Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place, 1982
American writers in the 20th and 21st centuries have continued to negotiate with Shakespeare. They have reinterpreted him, responding to regional and cultural differences, and issues of race and gender.
William Faulkner carried around a worn-out copy of Shakespeare, and his novels about the American south are enriched by Shakespearean references, including The Sound and the Fury, whose title is taken from a speech by Macbeth.
In Gertrude and Claudius, John Updike images the pre-play life of Shakespeare's characters from Hamlet. Jane Smiley has written about her own love-hate relationship with Shakespeare as she rewrote King Lear in her 1991 novel, A Thousand Acres.
African American women writers have used Shakespeare to explore both race and gender. Novelist Gloria Naylor's Mama Day both embraces and deconstructs Shakespeare's plays King Lear and The Tempest. Rita Dove, recent American Poet Laureate, has said, "I believe even 5-year-olds can get something from a Shakespearean sonnet... as long as you DON'T tell them, 'This is really hard,' " and her own poetry draws on Shakespearean themes. |