As one of the oldest and most widely practised forms of reflection on vernacular literatures, Shakespeare criticism has helped shape modern literary scholarship worldwide. The mutual influence between Shakespeare critics of different nations is well known and has in some cases been extensively studied and debated (see e.g. the controversy that has long surrounded Coleridge’s debt to Schlegel). Going beyond questions of influence, this conference aims to refocus the debate on the actual channels of transmission through which Shakespeare criticism has been circulated and received across linguistic and national boundaries, and on the various new audiences that it reached through that circulation.  

Possible topics include:

• Translations (faithful or not, authorized or not, with or without paratextual framing…), translators and publishers of Shakespeare criticism in different languages.
• The extracting, anthologizing and international canonization of critical pronouncements on Shakespeare.
• Reprints of Shakespeare criticism in different parts of the Anglophone world / other large linguistic areas.
• Lectures and lecture tours on Shakespeare (Schlegel, Coleridge, Dowden, Bradley, the British Academy Shakespeare lectures, …).
• New media (from 18th- and 19th-century periodicals to 21st-century digital platforms) and their impact on the dissemination/vulgarization of Shakespeare criticism.
• Audiences and the language(s) of Shakespeare criticism.     
• The rise of English as an international academic discipline and its impact on the production of Shakespeare criticism in other vernaculars. 

Deadline for abstracts: 31 January 2023

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