Rewriting the "Real": Popular Shakespeare in the 1990s

At the heart of this backlash, I contend, is the literary critics' antithetical notion of the "real," and popular culture's appropriation, rewriting, and "rescue" of it in nonacademic genres (especially the appreciation book and film adaptation). Marjorie Garber demonstrates this brilliantly in her book Academic Instincts when she discusses the double-edged antipathy literary scholars face: they are derided both for using "jargon" that appears inaccessible and for imposing meaning onto texts that are not "really" present.13 But what the popular adaptations and appreciations of the 1990s actually reveal is the exact opposite.