From Schlockspeare to Austenpop

Abstract

The substantial scholarly work done in the field of Shakespeare and popular culture in the last two decades has much more to offer Austen scholars confronting turn-of-the-millennium Austen-mania than has yet been acknowledged. Many of the anxieties and concerns that arise among academics about popular-culture evocations of Austen have already been thought through – and in many cases debated – by our colleagues in the Shakespeare arena. As the field of Austen and popular culture takes shape and gains credence, we who wish to contribute to it would do well to consider the arguments that have been made, and the questions that have been raised, about “Shakespop” and “Schlockspeare”. Considering the ways in which Austen differs from Shakespeare in terms of popular reinventions will further sharpen our investigations of her present-day popularity. Shakespeare scholars and specialists in other authors too can gain, I will argue, from pondering the ways in which this more recent canonical English author has been reworked and re-imagined. My aim in this essay is to offer scholars outside the Shakespeare field a critical overview of our sister field of Shakespeare and popular culture – an overview that I hope will also be of use to Shakespeare scholars, teachers, students and readers who are new to this subfield of Shakespeare studies. I will first consider the foundational arguments that Shakespeare scholars have made concerning why and how popular material should be studied, and then examine more closely theories that pertain to a subtopic that is of especial importance to Austen studies: fictional re-envisionings of the author's life and works. A brief case study of a recent Austen-inspired work will put into practice approaches informed by the subfield of Shakespeare and popular culture.