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One fateful day in high school, Doug Lanier鈥檚 English teacher played . When she dropped the needle on the record, she profoundly impacted Lanier鈥檚 life. Burton鈥檚 Hamlet was angry and rebellious, yet he sprang from respectable classical literature. It was a powerful combination that amazed and delighted Lanier. Today, as an English professor who specializes in Shakespeare and his contemporaries, he says, 鈥渢hat voice has never been far from my ear.鈥�

March 23, 2016, 7 p.m., Memorial Union Building Theater I

March 30, 2016, 7 p.m., Memorial Union Building, Theatre II

The Music of Shakespeare performed by the 91制片厂 Music Department
April 14, 2016, 5:30 p.m., Courtyard Reading Room, Dimond Library (Floor Five)

April 12, 2016听

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Upcoming Events at 91制片厂 Manchester:

April 23, 2016, 8:30 a.m. 鈥� 3:30 p.m.,听Room 201, 91制片厂 Manchester

Upcoming Events at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester

April 9 鈥� May 1, 2016

April 9, 2016, 10 a.m. 鈥� 1 p.m.

April 10, 2016, 2 p.m.

April 21, 2016, 6 鈥� 9 p.m.

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Lanier鈥檚 passion places him in the company of centuries of scholars who have dedicated themselves to William Shakespeare鈥檚 work 鈥� four centuries, to be exact. This year marks the quadricentennial of Shakespeare鈥檚 death. The occasion provides an opportunity to celebrate the poet considered to be among the finest in the English language. To commemorate the anniversary, Lanier and a committee of scholars from 91制片厂, St. Anselm College and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell worked with the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester to bring a rare copy of Shakespeare鈥檚 1623 First Folio to New Hampshire for public viewing. The free exhibition runs April 9 to May 1, 2016 at the Currier Museum. .

In an , fellow thespian Ben Jonson famously writes of Shakespeare, 鈥淗e was not of an age, but for all time.鈥� Lanier calls the poem one of the most successful ever written because of the influence it has had on the way we view Shakespeare.

鈥淭hat line has set the expectation for what Shakespeare's works would be 鈥� that they would be timeless, they would be universal, they would contain a kind of wisdom or power that transcends the particular concerns of his own age鈥�,鈥� says Lanier. Jonson was prophetic. 鈥淪hakespeare uniquely seems to be the playwright that occupies that space. It's very hard to think of another playwright or poet that we see in those terms.鈥�

The poem is one the reasons that the First Folio is such an important document. It has defined what makes Shakespeare Shakespeare and what makes great literature great literature, says Lanier.

The First Folio contains 36 of Shakespeare鈥檚 38 plays, including 18 plays that were first published in that volume. Perhaps the most important reason to celebrate the First Folio is that there would be no record of half of Shakespeare鈥檚 works, including some of his most loved 鈥� 鈥淢acbeth,鈥� 鈥淭he Tempest,鈥� and 鈥淭welfth Night鈥� among them. The Shakespeare that we know today would simply not exist.

Plus the Folio is 鈥渁 miracle of physical survival,鈥� notes Lanier. Scholars estimate that fewer than 1,000 folios were printed in 1623, of which only 233 are known to survive today. Given the extreme vulnerabilities of paper and the large number of other Renaissance texts that have been lost to time, it is extraordinary that any Folios survive at all.

Lanier鈥檚 enthusiasm for Shakespeare extends well beyond the 1623 Folio, with a focus on how Shakespeare persists and functions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His 2002 book 鈥淪hakespeare and Modern Popular Culture鈥� (Oxford University Press) examined how modern popular culture has appropriated and refashioned Shakespeare as a cultural icon through film, television, radio and other mass culture mediums. One strand of his current research looks at the newest medium, the Internet, and how Shakespeare has been appropriated for the Web.

鈥淭he latest thing on YouTube is that classical texts are reconceptualized as a series of vlog posts, which started with a 2012 series called 鈥楾he Lizzie Bennett Diaries,鈥� based on Jane Austen,鈥� says Lanier. 鈥淎fter that, people who like Shakespeare said 鈥榟ey, we could do this with Shakespeare,鈥� and there鈥檚 been an explosion of Shakespeare Web series.鈥�

The series are typically amateur videos that use contemporary language, characters and settings to episodically tell a recognizable Shakespearean story.

鈥淭hey are exceptionally creative,鈥� Lanier says. 鈥淭hey are very much engaged with the world of digital technology themselves, so they thematize the idea of how can Shakespeare be digital. A number of them are pretty interestingly progressive, particularly in terms of their gender and racial politics.鈥�

鈥淭hey are exceptionally creative ...听A number of them are pretty interestingly progressive, particularly in terms of their gender and racial politics.鈥�

Lanier credits Shakespeare鈥檚 鈥渋nfinite variety鈥� for keeping him coming back to the Bard, engaged and excited, over the course of his career. Every time he goes back, he sees something new, he says. Because he鈥檚 working with adaptations that push the boundaries of what it means to 鈥渄o鈥� Shakespeare, the infinite variety is even greater. Add a global dimension 鈥� Shakespeare on stage and screen in Africa, India and Asia 鈥� and you鈥檝e got linguistic and cultural variety of a new order.

As extraordinary as the survival of the First Folio is, perhaps more extraordinary is the idea that Shakespeare鈥檚 work has not just survived but thrived for over 400 years, deftly moving from Elizabethan stage to YouTube vlog, from imperial West to post-colonial East, from the English language to a host of non-western languages, in a series of transformations that not many other texts have successfully performed.

But, Lanier warns, that doesn鈥檛 mean that Shakespeare won鈥檛 fall out of favor in the future.

鈥淗ow culture survives in new cultural conditions 鈥� that's really what animates a lot of my research,鈥� says Lanier. 鈥淚鈥檓 finally interested in the question of how art lives on beyond the moment of its own making. What are the conditions that challenge that process? What are the conditions that allow it to happen? Shakespeare is just the best way to study that issue.鈥�

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