ABSTRACT
In his book Reinventing Shakespeare Gary Taylor refers to the ‘twin imperatives’ of authenticity and novelty that so often motivate our treatment of Shakespeare. 1 Taylor is right to remark that modern interactions with Shakespeare are characterized by complex and often antagonistic motives, but he is here oversimplifying the process of adaptation. What Taylor calls the imperative for authenticity, that force that draws us back to Shakespeare and holds him in such sacred esteem, seems to be more a complex combination of deference, nostalgia and a sense of cultural or artistic inferiority. Pushing against these forces is what Taylor calls the imperative for novelty, that force that drives us to innovate and change Shakespeare. Again, this innovating force is darker and more complex than simple novelty; it is made up of resentment, a sickness with tradition (the past?), a desire for independence and a desperate need to assert the self.
