ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the graphic novels and a comic to promote William Shakespeare to wider audiences and considers visual art as a form of critique and commentary, never merely descriptive, but almost invariably implying a perspective or point of view. Manga Shakespeare provides bold, dynamic visualizations of the plays, energizing and reinterpreting them for contemporary readers. William Hogarth provides one useful starting-point for consideration of the relationship of Shakespeare to visual culture. The Boydell Gallery, which was first opened in 1789, exhibited paintings of subjects taken from Shakespeare by British artists, emphasizing Shakespeare as a source for high art rather than for the representation of theatrical performances and performers. Each age arguably creates a Shakespearean imaginary through visual and theatrical cultures that reinterpret the plays in response to the contemporary Zeitgeist. The Boydell Gallery both represents and reflects a tendency towards a more inspirational and creative use of Shakespeare by artists working during and after the late eighteenth century.
