The Bard of Stratford- upon Avon has been the subject of innumerable academic debates and multifarious cultural transmissions. Shakespeare’s plays have been taught as part of the academic curriculum, adapted for diverse theatrical productions, theorized, as well as re-written and re-moulded according to cultural preferences re-shaping inter-disciplinary studies. All these have rendered Shakespeare as the icon of intellectuality and cultural elitism. However, as the distinctions between the intellectual and the popular have gradually blurred, his plays have been the inspiration of festivities and folk customs, myths, histories, parodies, burlesques and popular romances circulating across a wide range of media. As a medium of cultural dissemination, radio is a mobile and personal one; associated with the private domestic sphere, which is to be enjoyed within the comforts of the hearth and home. Listening to the radio has to be fitted in amidst the various domestic activities and mundane everyday conversations. This raises the very pertinent questions of how Shakespeare as an elitist cultural icon can be interpreted within the domestic structures. Does radio, as a cultural medium cater to the popular demands or does it constitute an alternative sub-culture overshadowed by the dominant theatrical adaptations? Or does it construct a separate discourse of highbrow culture and low culture within itself thereby creating a cultural heirarchy and problematizing the whole discourse of popular culture? This paper attempts to focus on these issues and also affirm the emergence of Multiple Shakespeares within this popular medium.
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Women?s College, Calcutta
