Shakespeare and the Making of America

Our three weeks together will be a journey of discovery. The path? A close look into a crucible that contains two Shakespeare plays, pre-American history, early American history—and the use and appropriation of all. Against traditional belief that attributes Shakespeare’s national impact to England and that dates America’s foundation to the Declaration of Independence, profound discoveries await us when we consider the “there and here, then and now.” The connections between The Tempest and Jamestowne are historical, literary, and deep. Those between The Merchant of Venice and the founding of the republic are perhaps less evident, but clear nonetheless. Shakespeare’s rhetoric and his language were in the mouths of the Founding Fathers in ways that were at once uplifting and divisive. In addition to the earliest printed versions of the plays, our journey will include unprecedented live, real-time access to the archeology and history of Jamestowne site and Jamestowne’s most brilliant staff . . . as well as the examination of other compelling documents:  

• The Declaration of Independence
• John Smith’s A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Hath Hapned in Virginia Since the First Planting of that Colony, which is now resident in the South part thereof, till the last returne from thence. (London, 1608)
• A selection of runaway slave advertisements from 1750s Virginia. A example, from the Virginia Gazette for January 1751, printed in Williamsburg: RAN away from the Subscriber, in James-City County, the 20th Day of December, a young Man, named Philip Jones, about 22 Years of Age: had on a dark grey Kersey Coat, black Cloth Waistcoat, a Silk Cap, and black-ribb'd Stockings. Whoever brings him to me shall have a Pistole Reward, besides what the Law allows. Emory Hughes. N.B. It is suppos'd he is gone towards Brunswick
• Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book
• Memoirs of A Monticello Slave as dictated to Reverend Charles Campbell by Isaac Jefferson, c. 1843

We will examine all of the various perspectives through various means: conversation and seminar with nationally recognized scholars, hands-on work with the language of the plays and these documents, reflection on our own perspectives. The ways in which scholars and historians have typically considered The Tempest and Jamestowne have drastically changed. Whose stories are not told? Whose stories have only begun to be told recently? Engagement with The Merchant of Venice and America’s founding documents makes visible the tension between prejudice and treasure. All of this is, of course, with our eyes on your classroom, bringing your students into this expanded world of literature and history, and to what these plays might mean for them now.