"Hinter dem Stücke geht das Ich an". Il Welttheater e l'influsso di Shakespeare nelle Nachtwachen von Bonaventura (1804) di August Klingemann

The paper investigates Shakespeare’s reception in the romantic novel "The Nightwatches of Bonaventura" by August Klingemann, published anonymously in 1804 under the pseudonym of ‘Bonaventura’. Starting from an overview of the long and complex debate on the literary authorship of the "Nightwatches", the study analyses the novel from a structural and thematic point of view, providing an insight into the recurring references to Shakespeare’s work, also considered as part of the novel’s intertextual mechanism and of the deeper interest in the English playwright among the German romantics. Following a depiction of human life as a dream and of the world as a stage, the final part of the study focuses on the influence of Hamlet on the main character’s humorous and nihilistic perspective on life, as opposed to his beloved Ophelia’s hopeful search for real love, identity and survival outside of the role we all leave behind us after death.