Followed by: Reception at 18.30 in the Leeuwenkuil coffee corner in PCH

This short talk on Shakespeare’s suspicion of nostalgia takes as its starting point the idea of a golden age. Via Ovid and the Elizabethan spin machine of iconography and court poetry, I then discuss the political significance of the Golden Age during the first decade of Shakespeare’s career. Finally, I turn to desire, that essential element of nostalgia and discourses of the idealized past. Examining Shakespeare’s plays, I show how he stages desire’s power to transform perceived past loss into future revolution.

Dr. Kristine Johanson is a senior lecturer in English Renaissance Literature and Culture at the University of Amsterdam.