http://hdl.handle.net/11089/30308 2026-04-03T20:54:24Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/39417 Book Reviews Wu, Yarong; Ringler-Pascu, Eleonora; Oshima, Hisao; Cui, Mengtian; Heijes, Coen 2019-06-30T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/39418 Theatre Reviews Pilla, Eleni; Georgopoulou, Xenia 2019-06-30T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/39413 Transversal Connections: The Cervantes Quatercentenary in Spain and its Comparison with “Shakespeare Lives” Gregor, Keith Taking as its cue the 2016 quatercentenaries of the deaths of both Shakespeare and Cervantes, the essay offers some insights into the “transversal connections” between both events as celebrated in Spain and the UK. The questions it raises and attempts to resolve are fourfold: (1) What are the reasons and also the benefits of yoking together two such apparently disparate authors, whose strongest link is, arguably, the fact they both passed away in 1616? (2) What work is being done to restore these writers to life, especially in schools where, for a variety of reasons, literature has lost its core-curricular status, and in general society where the classics seem to have less and less import? (3) What might Shakespeare or Cervantes be said to stand for in their respective cultures, both in terms of the genres they wrote in (it is often forgotten, for instance, that Cervantes was also a poet and a dramatist) and the extra-literary values they are said to transmit? (4) What is the role of the State in the safeguarding and promotion of the nation’s cultural heritage? 2019-06-30T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/39415 Finding Refuge in King Lear: From Brexit to Shakespeare’s European Value O’Neill, Stephen This article considers how Shakespeare’s King Lear has become a Brexit play across a range of discourses and media, from theatre productions and journalism to social media. With its themes of division and disbursement, of cliff edges and tragic self-immolation, Lear is the Shakespearean play that has been turned to as metaphor and analogy for the UK’s decision following the 23 June 2016 referendum to leave the European Union. Reading this presentist application of Shakespeare, the article attends to Shakespeare as itself a discourse through which cultural ideas, both real and imaginary, about Brexit and the EU are negotiated. It asks how can we might remap Lear in this present context―what other meanings and histories are to be derived from the play, especially in Lear’s exile and search for refuge, or in Cordelia’s departure for and return from France? Moving from a consideration of a Brexit Lear to an archipelagic and even European Lear, this article argues that Shakespeare is simultaneously a site of supranational connections and of a desire for values of empathy and refuge that reverberate with debates about migration in Europe. 2019-06-30T00:00:00Z