“This England”. Shakespeare’s Histories in the Twenty-First Century: Text, Genre, Performance

The topic of Memoria di Shakespeare 9/2022 on Shakespeare’s Histories could not be more timely. Political upheavel, a war in the heart of Europe, the death of a queen and forthcoming ceremonies of succession feature as a staple of our morning papers and evening news. What can be observed, however, is that such is Shakespeare’s cultural authority in anglophone countries and cultures that his representation of British history continues to attract attention and stimulate intellectual reflection. In a very recent contribution, Paul Stevens once again reminds us that Shakespare’s drama is “woven into the fabric of our culture: when its lines are quoted by Colonel Collins of the Royal Irish on the eve of the Iraq War or more recently by the eulogist at Senator McCain’s funeral, no one has to explain where phrases like ‘band of brothers’ come from” (Stevens 2021,221). leads us to take stock of the phenomenon from time to time and revisit the presumably original source of influence, the text and performance of Shakespeare’s plays. The terms “history” and “story”could be used almost interchangeably in Shakespeare’s time and “one of the dominant meanings of ‘story’ during the period was a narrative of events that were believed to have taken place in the past” (Lidster 2022, 8), and this allows us to present our “HiStories Re-told” without fear of straying from a rootedness in history. Certainly, this issue does not offer, nor could it do it, an exhaustive overview of the fields of inquiry related to the histories. Rather, by selecting a few areas of interest that continue to evolve, the aim is to provide an example of the range and vitality of Shakespearean criticism on these plays.