A study funded by the British government to the tune of almost a million pounds claims that William Shakespeare, one of foremost the literary icons in history, has been disproportionately represented and has enabled “white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives” to dominate theatre.
The study, by academics at the University of Roehampton, was funded by the government’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and essentially claims that Shakespeare is not diverse enough.
The Telegraph reports that the overseer of the study, Andy Kesson, complains that “masculinity and nationalism were crucial motivating factors in the rise of Shakespeare as the arbiter of literary greatness” adding that “[w]e need to be much, much more suspicious of Shakespeare’s place in contemporary theatre”.
Hellbound and Down 