The vitality of our culture is still often measured by the status Shakespeare has within it. Contemporary readers and writers continue to exploit Shakespeare's cultural afterlife in a vivid and creative way. This fascinating collection of original essays shows how writers' efforts to imitate, contradict, compete with, and reproduce Shakespeare keep him in the cultural conversation. The essays analyze the methods and motives of Shakespearean appropriation, investigate theoretically the return of the repressed author in discussions of Shakespeare's cultural function, put into dialogue theoretical and literary responses to Shakespeare's cultural authority, and analyze works ranging from nineteenth century to the present, and genres ranging from poetry and the novel to Disney movies.