Shakespeare in Digital Media: The Shakespeare Programming Language and Digital Adaptation

In the past two decades, adaptation studies has evolved from a relatively neglected paradigm to a major approach in Shakespeare studies and literary studies more generally. One key factor in the rise of adaptation to academic prominence has been its enormous proliferation in popular culture, and particularly on the internet and on social media. Yet while there is a steadily growing body of scholarship on digital adaptation, very little of it has focused on the computational processes that run in the background of, and effectively constitute, any digital media product. Similarly, little attention has been paid in adaptation studies to the medium of computer source code. This presentation suggests how this gap might be filled by reading the Shakespeare Programming Language as a digital adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays.