Shakespeare and modern Greek politics

This article provides an overview of the few modern Greek productions that connected Shakespeare with contemporary political issues. It subsequently explores a variety of references to Shakespeare’s plays in recent Greek political speeches, articles about late twentieth- and twenty-first-century politics in Greece, as well as Greek satirical programmes of the last decade, focusing on the current financial crisis in the country. It also argues that during the last decades Shakespeare’s identity in Greece has changed from a playwright for the elite to a commodity for the masses