ABSTRACT
There it was, saved forever, perfect . . . I couldn’t match McKellen so I had an artistic temper tantrum.
(Chris Philpott, Scenes from Macbeth)
Everyone wants him!—to BE him [Shakespeare]. (Billy Morrissette, Scotland, PA, press kit)
“I want to be king!” (Al Pacino, Looking For Richard, VHS)
The history of what was once England’s most valuable cultural commodityShakespeare-bears striking similarities to the histories of some of the other commodities which the former empire has, in the course of its rise and fall, produced and exported. Take for example the Jaguar: a car that was once an iconic expression of British national culture and is now an asset largely in the hands of a lost colonial possession-America. As recounted in the online “Brief chronological history of the marque,” the story of the Jaguar is unwittingly overwritten by motifs from Arthurian romance. The tale begins demotically with the establishment of Swallow cars by a young British motorcyclist named Billy Lyons in 1922. Later, re-christened “Jaguar,” the brand gains prominence in England, becoming a bearer of the character and heritage of the national identity. In 1954, a period the “chronological history” calls “The British Invasion,” Billy Lyons, himself re-christened and now Sir William Lyons of Wappenbury Hall, begins exporting cars to a “former colony . . . in earnest.” We are told that this postwar period is a buoyant time when “The Empire Strikes Back,” though success proves shortlived. Following Lyon’s death in 1985, Jaguar succumbs to “A Better Idea,” and in 1989, Jaguar is acquired by the Ford motor company. Refurbishing the
brand, but capitalizing on its prestige and using funding provided by its former proprietors, Ford develops a new model, the X200: “Jaguar’s smaller, more affordable saloon car, would be built at the Castle Bromwich plant.” The elegy ends with a former colony’s having appropriated the brand and marketing it back to its former owners. Now it’s the emancipated child of the empire who strikes back.
