What Blest Genius?: The Jubilee That Made Shakespeare

Stott (The Poet and the Vampyre) entertainingly chronicles the 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-upon-Avon, which he asserts cemented Shakespeare’s status as the “weightiest of cultural authorities.” The book describes the Jubilee as the brainchild of Stratford-upon-Avon’s civic leaders, who hoped to thereby raise their town’s profile. To do so, they enlisted the aid of renowned actor David Garrick, who had built his career around Shakespeare, whom he revered. While the Jubilee itself was largely a disaster, plagued by heavy rains, flooding, price gouging, and tacky displays, Garrick emerged unscathed. The ode he wrote to Shakespeare was the hit of the festival, and Stratford-Upon-Avon became a popular tourist destination. However, it’s James Boswell, famous as Samuel Johnson’s biographer, who emerges as the book’s true star. Boswell, a good friend of Garrick’s, shameless self-promoter, and fervent Shakespeare lover, attended the Jubilee, recorded and published his impressions, and managed to enjoy himself despite the event’s many failings. Whether or not the Jubilee was the watershed moment in Shakespeare veneration Stott claims, he provides a lively, page-turning narrative, and proves that shamelessly overhyped media events are not just modern phenomena. (Apr.)