ABSTRACT
Popular culture is a mirror held up to life. Sometimes that reflection seems full of motion and madness. Both undergraduate and graduate Shakespeare courses cropped up in universities. Students got PhD degrees for dealing with small segments of a single play, or for finding interior meanings that might have startled Shakespeare. Producers found out that the public-including those without PhDs-loved Shakespeare and flocked to see his work on stage and screen. Shakespeare festivals flourished, and actors such as Laurence Olivier and Mel Gibson, directors such as Franco Zeffirelli and Baz Luhrman showed just how popular Shakespeare had become-four centuries after many of the plays were first produced. Andrew Levison's book The Working Class Majority suggests that many widely held stereotypes are not true. Too many factors and actions refute the charge that there is no purpose, elasticity, or individuality left in modern society.
