Cultural History and Cultural Materialism

Abstract

I've been asked to cover a specific topic for this special issue, the interpretation of Shakespeare from the perspective of cultural history. I'm going to ask certain questions intended for both Shakespeareans and common readers. The first is, Can interpretation ever be final? This question matters more to students than one thinks. No one has yet been able to assign an absolute meaning to Shakespeare's text. Interpretation changes naturally enough with time. But this may not be as much of an opportunity as it sounds. Works of art last longer than explanations for them. They last better too. The work can at times be revalued, but the fate of criticism is worse, it goes out of style. The disparity between the fate of art and that of criticism may account for some of the anxiety of intellectual life. My own sense of the matter is that part of the job of criticism is to reject implausible explanation. As the man said about waiting for the Messiah, it's steady work. I've taken a first example from the late seventeenth century which discloses how far critics and producers will go in reinterpreting the text. The question is, What does one do with plays whose original values no longer obtain? Suppose, like the histories, they take monarchy seriously? Or, like The Tempest, one of their prime values is virginity? Do they entertain us like, say, Pharaonic relics which have the power momentarily to impress, but which can communicate nothing of their original imperatives? Emptied of their content, they are filled up with what we provide, Egyptian motifs on wallpaper. But people once died gladly and in great numbers for what we now perceive as themes in a text. Great efforts have been made to modernize the text, efforts which began in the same century as their original production. Criticism early demanded