Legitimating Media: Shakespeare’s Awkward Travels Through Video Games and Twitter

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Since the 19th century, Shakespeare references have recurred with surprising consistency in experimental forms of media. This article considers the role of references to and adaptations of Shakespeare texts when a media form takes on a new valence for a set of users in a particular time and place. We consider two different moments at length: a commercial interactive game from 1984 that made novel use of cassettes and sound, and the production and reception of early Twitter adaptations of Shakespeare in 2010. By standing in for the aesthetic possibilities and limits of a changing media space, Shakespearean references and deviations from them serve a key role for artists and critics in debates over the legitimacy and significance of creative work in emergent media. Thus, cultural producers, critics and audiences thus use these sometimes-awkward appearances of Shakespeare as a means of describing their aesthetic potentials and limits.</jats:p>