Shakespeare continues to feature in the construction and refashioning of national cultures and identities in a variety of forms. There is, and was, a German Shakespeare (East and West); there is the contested legacy of a colonial Shakespeare in former British possessions; there is the post-national Shakespeare who has become the focus of debates concerning multiculturalism. Shakespeare has often been co-opted to serve nationalism yet it has also served to contest and transform it in complex and contradictory ways. The examples are legion. In situating the question of Shakespeare and national culture in its global perspective this volume draws together original essays by the leading scholars in the field.