'Shakespeare in Fragments: Culture in Captivity at Ruhleben Internment Camp'

During the First World War, about 5500 “British” civilians were interned at Ruhleben Camp in Germany. Internees developed their own micro-society that featured performances of Shakespeare’s plays, including a 1916 Tercentenary Festival, as well as Shakespearean parodies, commentaries, and extracts within the camp’s magazines. This article evaluates Shakespeare’s presence at Ruhleben by examining the short forms and adapted texts developed by internees and argues that it is characterized by fragmentation in appeal and evidence. While some internees, including the camp’s “Supermen”, prized Shakespeare as an essential cultural touchstone during their imprisonment, he was a disputed figure for others in the camp. Shakespeare was not performed very often, but was most significant as a metonymy for an elite, highbrow culture that was valued by some internees, but was exclusionary and unappealing for others. Understanding Shakespeare’s presence at Ruhleben is compromised by the limitations of surviving evidence and the fact that extant testimonies and memoirs predominately reflect the views of upper- and middle-class white internees, who championed Shakespeare as a representative of superior “English” culture and language. Centralizing Shakespeare can deflect attention away from the diversity of the camp’s demographics and the transnational range of dramatists performed at the camp theatre.