This study analyzes several burlesques to examine how such social and political comment takes
place through a form of dialog in which the burlesque engages with the cultural claims of
serious revivals of Shakespeare. It concentrates on how burlesque dramas' treatment of
Shakespearean plays reflects key attitudes and tensions in Victorian society highlighting
these through the incongruities between Shakespeare as known to their audience and as presented
in the plays. The theatrical burlesques composed in the Victorian age adapt Shakespeare to
address the habits tastes cultural and social values and preoccupations of their audiences.
Hence issues of social class gender race political topicality and the social status of the
plays' addressees are addressed. The changes and tensions in Victorian drama through
burlesques are central to an understanding of nineteenth-century popular culture and society.
By focusing on concepts of high and low culture in Shakespearean burlesques both externally
and internally this study takes a distinctive angle which integrates literary analysis with
study of audience and cultural reception to provide a better understanding of the cultural
significance of these humorous satiric plays.
