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Michael Murphy: The farcical attempt to 'decolonize' Shakespeare

The Bard's themes — of love, betrayal, friendship, madness and the perils of power — are universal. To insist otherwise is itself racist

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The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, custodian of buildings and archival materials linked to the playwright, has decided that Shakespeare was too white for their liking. So white, in fact, that the Trust commissioned an investigation into how the playwright’s work advanced “white supremacy.”

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Shakespeare’s plays stand accused of being a pillar of “British cultural superiority” and “Anglo-cultural supremacy,” compliments with which I shan’t quibble. The Trust was magnanimous enough, no doubt to the delight of continental esthetes who would like to claim him, to also implicate the Bard in “white European supremacy.” One wonders if the English can, in turn, be awarded some kudos for Dante — but I digress.

Michael........

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