Introduction

The introduction analyses how and why Shakespeare’s works and reputation spread among non-Anglophone communities in Europe and India at a time in the nineteenth century when nationalism was on the rise in both these regions. Departing from scholarly approaches that have linked Shakespeare’s global spread with either his timeless and universal genius, or with British attempts to establish cultural hegemony, this chapter adopts a relational approach to examine how Shakespeare’s plays were adapted in different cultures, a phenomenon that contributed to the rise of “nationalist cosmopolitanisms” in Europe and India. The reasons why adaptation theory can provide new insights into the mechanisms of Shakespeare’s global spread are examined, and some of the features that are common to European and Indian adaptations of Shakespeare from this period are then discussed.