Praise for the literary value of Shakespeare's plays was slow in coming. After the revival of drama at the time of the Restoration (1660), a change in the tastes of theatergoers began to diminish Shakespeare's popularity. At the same time women replaced boys in women's parts, and many of Shakespeare's plays lacked leading roles for women. They were no longer right for the times.

Yet, even then, Shakespeare had powerful defenders. Sir John Suckling, a courtier, simply said, “I love Shakespeare.”

In 1598 Clergyman Francis Meres in his critique of English authors in Palladis Tamia Wits Treasury wrote, “As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines: so Shakespeare among [the] English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage.”

The glorification of Shakespeare finally came to fruition with the Shakespeare Jubilee.

The Shakespeare Jubilee 1769

The Shakespeare Jubilee, which director/actor David Garrick had planned for five years, was the first of its kind. By the time he was ready, it was five years after the two hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's birth, and not in the playwright's birth month, April, but in September.

A special amphitheater had been built where guests would watch the plays, dance at a costume ball, and partake of a 327-pound turtle, which had been shipped on a schooner from South America. This festive occasion began well enough: cannons fired, Stratford's Guild Chapel bell rang for a full day, and musicians and singers paraded the dusty streets, calling, “This is a day, a holiday! A holiday! Drive spleen and rancor away!”

For the next three days, the townspeople were inundated with song, wooed with odes to Shakespeare's greatness, and left spellbound by the plays. At first the audiences were more bemused by the stage presentations than entertained by them. Most had never read any of the plays, and even less had seen them performed. They never thought of their own Mr. Shakespeare as a man who would be immortalized by his own writings. Yet, the quality of the plays, the passion of Garrick's actors, soon had the people clamoring for more. This flood of rejoicing changed on the fourth day when the true flood came: the weather turned against Garrick — and the Bard — as heavy gray clouds lumbered across the skies, releasing a torrent of rain.

The River Avon flooded into the streets, threatening homes as well as the lives of the townspeople. One cleric, his voice resounding in Holy Trinity Church, avowed: “It is the wrath of God! This idolatrous proceeding has not the place in our hearts and minds. Or in God's!”

Yet the last play, Othello, went on in the Rotunda. Those gathered to see the play numbered 2,000, packed tightly into Stratford's Rotunda, a building that was meant to hold half as many. They sat on benches trying to keep their feet clear out of the puddles that had come with three days of torrential rain.

At the end of the performance, as Othello and Desdemona took their curtain call to the enthusiastic applause of audience, Garrick strode center stage. With his hands held high, he asked for silence and announced that he had composed an ode to Shakespeare, a special reading for the Jubilee. He began:

After the Jubilee was over, one local called it the “Resurrection of Shakespeare.” It was more than that; it was the beginning of an industry. Stratford-upon-Avon became the destination for travelers who worshiped Shakespeare.

George Bernard Shaw, who deplored the worship of Shakespeare, coined the term Bardolatry, saying that Shakespeare's ideas were “platitudinous fudge.” He also stated, “Without the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise entirely, as I despise Shakespear [sic] when I measure my mind against his.”

Bardolatry

Today in Stratford-upon-Avon the center of activity begins at Shake-speare's Birthplace, a two-story, half-timbered building. The brown-and-white paneled house is just one of the similarly built structures that date back to Shakespeare's time and give Stratford-upon-Avon much of its character. It is said that 200 years ago, splinters of what was touted to be Shakespeare's writing chair were sold to tourists, yet the chair never seemed to diminish in size. On the window of the birth room, such famous writers as Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle had, in reverence, scratched their signatures.

To get inside the house, one must pass through the Shakespeare Centre, a strikingly modern brick structure that adjoins Shakespeare's Birthplace. The Centre houses a collection of Shakespearean memorabilia, including one of the rare copies of the First Folio. One has to pass through room after room of gift shops to get to the exit. On display are multicolored quills with feathery ostrich plumes, maps, postcards, Shakespeare coloring books, games and toys, and even velvet paintings of his likeness.

One wonders what Shakespeare might think of all this idolatry. Perhaps this line from A Midsummer Night's Dream will suffice to speak for him: “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”