Meanings
- uncountableEnthusiasm for the works of English playwright, poet and actor William Shakespeare (1564–1616).
Shakespearemania may have waned slightly since then, but as the 1996 autumn festival in Madrid showed, it is always capable of returning.
1998, Shakespeare Quarterly, page 4213 more examples
His veneration and imitation of the English playwright, part of a German tradition of “Shakespearemania” initiated by Herder’s “Shakespeare” essay, has been well documented.
1979, William C. Reeve, Georg Büchner, →ISBN, page 27Michael Bristol’s Shakespeare’s America explores the philosophical and cultural background that gave rise to Shakespearemania in the nineteenth century and that has supported its various manifestations down to the present day.
1990, College & Research Libraries, page 570Shakespearemania prevailed in 1828. Only one year later, another English troupe arrived in Paris featuring William Macready in Macbeth, and some months later, still another exciting visitor, the renowned Edmund Kean, performed in Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, and King Lear.
2007, Bettina Knapp, Marie Dorval: France’s Theatrical Wonder: A Book for Actors, Rodopi, →ISBN, pages 75–76
Origin
Cite this entry
Shakespearemania. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shakespearemania
“Shakespearemania.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shakespearemania. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Shakespearemania,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Shakespearemania.
Source: Shakespearemania on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.