Shakespeare Adaptations from the Early Eighteenth Century: Five Plays
Publisher: Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2014
Role: Editor
This book presents a scholarly edition of five of the first adaptations of Shakespeare from the eighteenth century, the period when Shakespeare became “Shakespeare.”
Written by men influential in early Augustan cultural spheres, these adaptations demonstrate how contemporary literary principles and contemporary politics were applied to Shakespeare’s texts.
Writing in The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer (2015), Matthew J. Rinkevich positively reviews the edition. ‘As an editor, Johanson proves informative, clear, and—when turning to the plays themselves—laudably unobtrusive […] she provides a far-reaching examination of the English stage and its relationship to the nation’s political and cultural life during the early Hanoverian period, and she constructs an excellent resource for those unfamiliar with the dramatic history of the early eighteenth century.’ Mark Fortier notes in his review, ‘Ms. Johanson is a judicious commentator, and her general introduction and introductions to the particular plays are helpful. Shakespeare Adaptations would make for a fine textbook’.