“The God of Our Idolatry”: Garrick and Shakespeare

The Lewis Walpole Library is a research library for eighteenth-century studies and the prime source for the study of Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill. Its collections include significant holdings of eighteenth-century British books, manuscripts, prints, drawings, and paintings, as well as important examples of the decorative arts. The Library welcomes students and researchers from Yale and beyond; it awards residential fellowships, offers master classes, and organizes several exhibitions each year that are free and open to the public. The Library’s spring 2012 exhibition, “The God of Our Idolatry”: Garrick and Shakespeare, shows off the extraordinary contribution the actor David Garrick, arguably the eighteenth century’s greatest man of the theatre, made to the age’s understanding of Shakespeare. Displaying printed texts, manuscript letters, drawings, prints, and portraits, the exhibition illustrates how, on stage and off, Garrick influenced the public’s view of Shakespeare, inspiring what Bernard Shaw later called “bardolatry.”

Part of Shakespeare at Yale, a semester of special events celebrating the Bard.

Hours:

Library open by appointment
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 8:30 a.m. – 4:45 p.m. and Tuesday 9 a.m. – 4:45 p.m.
The Library is closed on University holidays.

The exhibition gallery is open
Wednesdays, 2-4:30 p.m. when exhibitions are on view.
No appointment is required.

For directions to library, please visit: http://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/about/directions.html