ABSTRACT
The presence of Shakespeare in South Africa is a fact of colonial history. He was imposed on the country, along with many other facets of large-scale globalizing society, as an integral part of the deeply one-sided colonial exchange: ownership of the land, gems, minerals and other raw materials for Christianity, 'civilization' and western education. In 1987 Martin Orkin's Shakespeare Against Apartheid marked the moment when British cultural materialism and American new historicism first made an impact in South African Shakespeare studies. The talismanic influences were Jonathan Dollimore's Radical Tragedy with substantial figure of Raymond Williams in the prompt box, and Stephen Greenblatt's Renaissance Self-fashioning with Foucault brooding in the wings. The first two essays, by Peter Merrington and Victor Houliston, assess the very different manner in which Cape Town and Johannesburg celebrated the Shakespeare Tercentenary. A key literary monument to international Tercentenary celebrations was Israel Gollancz's A Book of Homage to Shakespeare which may have been co-edited by Sol Plaatje.
