Tieck's Essay on the Boydell Shakspere Gallery

This study delves into a little‑known early essay by the German Romantic Ludwig Tieck, in which he confronts the ambitious Boydell Shakespeare Gallery—a massive public commission that aimed to celebrate Shakespeare through a series of grand oil paintings and engravings. By tracing the gallery’s origins, funding, and artistic goals, the author sets the stage for understanding why Tieck found the project so troubling. The introduction also explains how this essay marked Tieck’s first foray into public literary criticism, revealing his deep personal attachment to Shakespeare and his scepticism toward English commercial art.

Through a close comparison of Tieck’s commentary with the original engravings, the monograph uncovers the critic’s nuanced taste, his method of source usage, and his challenge to prevailing claims that Lessing’s influence was absent. It also highlights the cultural friction between the Romantic yearning for authentic expression and the “roast‑beef” commercialism of late‑18th‑century England. The work invites listeners to reconsider how art, literature, and national identity intersected at a pivotal moment in European aesthetic history.