Shakespeare and German students

Abstract

'Tell me how you deal with Shakespeare and I tell you who you are'. This maxim which is a variation of the well-known saying 'Tell me with whom you converse and I shall tell you who you are', is calculated to stress the curious nature of a great work of art, particularly so, I feel, of Shakespeare's great dramatic work, in that it threatens to unmask the critic's prejudices, and to detect his shortcomings and limitations, by confronting him with his own interpretation, or, to put it metaphorically 'to hoist the Shakespearian enginer with his own critical petard'.