When Shakespeare wrote his works around the turn of the 16th century, he could not have foreseen that countless writers and artists from the mid-17th century to the present day would re-use his work to make a new cultural statement of their own: in the theatre, in the novel, in opera, in the cinema. This course primarily looks at 4 Shakespeare plays (The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, Hamlet, and The Tempest) and at their rich, international afterlives (incl. John Fletcher, The Tamer Tamed; Edward Bond, Lear; Akiro Kurosawa, Ran; Heiner Müller, Hamlet­machine; John McTiernan, Last Action Hero; Thomas Vinterberg, Festen; Philip Osment, This Island's Mine). It will look at the encounter between the "original" and the "appropriation" in an attempt to bring into focus not what Shakespeare may have meant, but also what later generations meant by Shakespeare. The lectures also introduce other plays and appropriations (Othello, Henry V, Richard III) in order to further the student's individual work in this fascinating research area.