Q&A with UNC English professor David Baker

English professor David Baker will be giving a lecture about how William Shakespeare’s works relate to the modern marketplace at Flyleaf Books.

Staff writer John Howell, Jr. spoke with Baker about how Shakespeare influenced both the modern and past British marketplaces.

DAILY TAR HEEL: Why is Shakespeare important today?

DAVID BAKER: Shakespeare is absolutely everywhere in our entertainment culture.

He is unique amongst the Renaissance playwrights in that he has an enduring life in popular culture that extends over centuries.

He has proved his importance in many ways over a long time.

DTH: How does Shakespeare relate to the marketplace?

DB: He was important in the marketplace during his time because his enormous productivity and his shrewd entrepreneurial sense enabled his acting company, The King’s Men, to establish itself as one of the pre-eminent acting companies of the time and to put on, year after year, tremendously popular plays. So in a real way, Shakespeare was one of the mainsprings of the entertainment industry in early modern England.

In the larger world, Shakespeare has managed to infiltrate the theater scene in many different countries. In our own country, popular artists attest that Shakespeare has been influential for them, that they think about Shakespeare when they do their own work.

DTH: What was the basis for you to bring these two ideas together?

DB: First of all, it reflects my research. I recently wrote a book called “On Demand,” which tries to chart the influence of early modern England’s developing consumer economy on Shakespeare among other artists. But I’m hardly the only person to take that line of attack.

There is a whole school of early modern critics who have been thinking for decades now about how Shakespeare played into market developments in early modern England, how he can be understood as a commercial artist and how he compares to other commercial artists who were trying to make a buck in the same day.

Well before critics started thinking about these issues, people have had to think about how Shakespeare could be both the monumental artist that they see him as and also a commercially successful businessman.

Over the many centuries that people have been thinking about Shakespeare, they have been trying to think about the reasons for Shakespeare’s commercial success and whether they were the same reasons as his economic success. One of the things I’m going to say in the lecture is essentially yes, they are the same reasons.

DTH: Are there other areas that we can see this influence?

DB: The publishing industry’s answer to that is that Shakespeare’s lessons are applicable to everything. There are books on Shakespeare and contemporary business. There are books on lessons for CEOs and managers that are provided by his plays. It’s a staple of American publishing to take Shakespeare and apply him to some part of everyday life and to draw out the lessons.

Shakespeare is a puzzle. He’s everywhere, we all enjoy him, but it’s very hard to figure out what exactly he stood for. In a capitalist culture like the one we inhabit, it matters that Shakespeare understood capitalism and still has things to tell us about it today. As strange as it sounds, we should think very seriously about what Shakespeare has to tell us about money and why it mattered in his time, and why it still matters in ours.

Contact the desk editor at arts@dailytarheel.com.