The Reconstruction of an Ancient Past in Shakespeare’s Drama

Abstract

Our field of investigation is currently the way in which the pre-Roman and pre-Christian culture of the British and Irish Isles permeates the work of William Shakespeare. The main task consists in the excavation of motifs belonging to this ancient culture. Such motifs do not always evidently appear on the surface of the text. They sometimes do, but most often, they require a thorough in depth exploration. This paper offers to examine some aspects of the (re)construction of the so called “Celtic” culture in Shakespearean drama. This has not been addressed before. In this sense we can talk of a “construction”. However, the culture in question is preexistent to our study. Therefore, we may accept the idea of “reconstruction” of a forgotten past. Firstly, since the word “Celt” is very vague, a definition of the period of time and the geographical areas involved will be needed. Then, we will explain how we came to the exploration of such a subject by developing two examples taken from Shakespeare’s King Lear. Eventually, beyond the acknowledgment and observation of motifs, we will wonder why such an aspect of cultural history has been forgotten and what its reconstruction means now.