Introducing Shakespeare: A Graphic Guide - Nick Groom, Piero 2013

The Late Capitalist Show

Cultural Materialism’s main preoccupation is with the present rather than the past. For instance, the contemporary Marxist critic Terry Eagleton asserts…

SHAKESPEARE IS THE QUINTESSENTIAL COMMODITY, AT ONCE EVER-NEW AND CONSOLINGLY RECOGNIZABLE, ALWAYS DIFFERENT AND ETERNALLY THE SAME. ONE COULD SAY THE SAME THING ABOUT EAGLETON’S MARXISM … INDEED, IS THIS NOT ITSELF PERHAPS THE DESIRE — TO BE IMMORTALLY “SHAKESPEAREAN”?

Some materialist critics have taken their obsession with commodities and the market to even greater lengths …

The complexity of the plays might be described not as an artistic achievement but rather as a shrewd strategy to curry favour with as many sectors as possible within a complex multi-cultural market. This would suggest that a Shakespearean work is in effect an industrial rather than an individual product and that its specific form of appearance is in some fundamental way motivated and sanctioned by an ethos of business success. Shakespeare would then be seen as something more like a modern corporate logo or trademark rather than a specific name of an exceptional individual or creative genius.

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCT? CORPORATE LOGO? WHAT’S HE TALKING ABOUT?