ABSTRACT

Shakespeare has become a literary institution, seen by many as the unquestionable centre of English studies Shakespeare is considered so important by so many people in the United Kingdom that he is the only compulsory author on the National Curriculum: this means that it is effectively a legal requirement for anybody educated in the United Kingdom to study Shakespeare. Views on Shakespeare are still changing in other ways, too, even 400 years after his death. Traditionalists argue that Shakespeare should be studied because of the aesthetic worth of his work, because he communicates values shared by everyone and because he has universal appeal. Cultural materialists are more interested in the way the institution of Shakespeare is related to politics and history. Cultural materialists argue that Shakespeare is the name for a key cultural tool used to convince people of a series of ideas.