"Enter Shakespeare's Ghost": Shakespearean Adaptations and Appropriations

The paper analyzes the emergence of the name, authorship and authority of William Shakespeare through his appearance as Ghost on the stages of late-Seventeenth century adaptations. Three case-studies are taken into account, Dryden’s Troilus and Cressida, Gildon’s Measure for Measure and Granville’s Jew of Venice, where Shakespeare is given the flesh and the voice of an actor playing the role of his Ghost either in a Prologue or an Epilogue, thus allowing him to re-enter the realm of the living and their cultural memory.