"The area of theatrical performance illuminates the cultural transfer and appropriation of Shakespeare's plays. The essays in this volume reveal the kinds of versions and adaptations used in different historical periods for political, ideological, or aesthetic purposes in France, Spain, Belgium, and the German-speaking countries. Shakespeare, as Dennis Kennedy argues, is the great loser of the Cold War."--BOOK JACKET.

"Four Hundred Years of Shakespeare in Europe offers a wide range of essays that testify to the unprecedented boom in the study of "Shakespeare in Europe" at the end of the 1990s. It provides a historical and conceptual framework for the research that has been done in this neglected area. The contributions cover three main areas in the history of Shakespearean reception: productions, translations, and appropriation in more general terms (including the revival of Shakespeare as a fictional character). Contributors to this volume come from the European Continent, from Britain, and from the United States."