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Part of
Romeo and Juliet in European Culture
Edited by Juan F. Cerdá, Dirk Delabastita and Keith Gregor
[Shakespeare in European Culture 1] 2017
► pp. 263–282

Chapter 13
What’s in a stamp?

Romeo and Juliet in the postal system of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

| University of Murcia

Since 1948, over 20 different postage stamps inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet have been issued all over the world. The issue of these stamps contributes to “officially” making Shakespeare a part of the issuing countries. The philatelic commemoration of Shakespeare’s play through the issue of postage stamps devoted to it is thus a culturally significant act. The aim of this chapter is to examine how postage stamps, with all the political, cultural and economic implications these documents entail, portray Romeo and Juliet and to what extent the reading of the play that these stamps convey is consistent with Shakespeare’s text.

Keywords: Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet , postage stamps, commemoration, cultural studies
Article outline
  • Introduction: Stamps as commemorative acts
  • Romeo and Juliet on stamps
  • The beginnings
  • Quatercentenary stamps
  • Further ramifications beyond Europe in the 1970s and 1980s
  • Disneyfication
  • From the 1990s to the present
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sec.1.14fue
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Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

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