Abstract This essay contextualises Shakespeare as product of a field of forces encapsulating national identity and relative cultural status. It begins by historicising the production of national poets in Romantic and Nationalist terms. Lefevere’s conceptual grid is then used to characterise the system that underpins the production of Shakespeare as British national poet, and his place within the canon of world literature. The article defines this context first before moving onto the figure of Shakespeare, by referring to various high status texts such as the Kalevala, the Aeneid, The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost. The position accorded Shakespeare at the apex is therefore contingent upon a series of prior operations on other texts, and their writers. Shakespeare is not conceived as attaining pre-eminence because of his own innate literary qualities. Rather, a process of elimination occurs by which the common ascription of the position of national poet to a writer of epic is shown to be a cultural impossibility for the British. Instead, via Aristotle’s privileging of tragedy over epic, the rise of Shakespeare is seen as almost a second choice because of the inappropriateness of Spenser and Milton for the position.

中文翻译：

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民族诗人，史诗地位和威廉·莎士比亚大师的奇案

摘要本文以莎士比亚为背景，将莎士比亚作为一个囊括国家身份和相对文化地位的势力领域的产物。首先要以浪漫主义和民族主义的术语来历史化民族诗人的创作。勒菲弗（Lefevere）的概念网格随后被用来描述支撑莎士比亚作为英国民族诗人的作品以及他在世界文学经典中的地位的体系。本文首先通过引用各种高地位的文本（例如，Kalevala，Aeneid，The Faerie Queene和Paradise Lost）来定义莎士比亚形象之前的背景。因此，莎士比亚在顶点所处的位置取决于对其他文本及其作者的一系列先前的操作。莎士比亚由于其先天的文学素养而不被认为具有卓越的才能。相反，消灭的过程发生了，通过这种消灭过程，国家诗人对史诗作家的共同归属被证明是英国人的文化上的不可能。取而代之的是，通过亚里士多德（Aristotle）对史诗悲剧的轻视，莎士比亚的崛起几乎被视为第二选择，因为斯潘塞（Spencer）和弥尔顿（Milton）不适合担任该职位。