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Romeo and Juliet in European Culture
Edited by Juan F. Cerdá, Dirk Delabastita and Keith Gregor
[Shakespeare in European Culture 1] 2017
► pp. 159–176

Chapter 8
Star-crossed lovers in Sweden

| Lund University
This chapter traces the history, past and present, of Romeo and Juliet in Sweden, by looking at a few memorable productions, translations and adaptations. In addition, it seeks to give some tentative answers to the questions why, after a first period of popularity, the play was comparatively rarely performed for over a hundred years, and why it then subsequently recovered its popularity on Swedish stages.
Keywords: Romeo and Juliet , Swedish Shakespeare translations, Swedish stage history, Carl August Hagberg, ageism, gender-blind casting
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • A sluggish start
  • 1776: A bourgeois tragedy, a moral debate, and the onslaught of Romanticism
  • 1850: Carl August Hagberg, and the star-crossed lovers overtaken
  • A second spring
  • Playing with the play: Old age, gender-bending, feuds, Freud, and what’s in a name?
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sec.1.09lin
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