ABSTRACT

Kenneth Rothwell, the leading historian of the Shakespeare-on-film movement, liked to begin public lectures on his subject by quoting the Chorus from Henry V and cleverly changing one word of his opening declaration: O for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling screen! Rothwell’s change of the last word of the passage, “screen” for “scene,” changes also the implicit meaning of preceding key words: “muse,” “fire,” “invention.” Film yokes the Shakespearean poetic muse with the Promethean fires of scientific invention to produce illuminations both historic and contemporary, ascendant and grounded.