How did Jan Kott’s interpretation portray Shakespeare’s plays after World War II?

In the aftermath of World War II, the Polish critic Jan Kott offered a transformative and iconoclastic interpretation of William Shakespeare’s works. Writing from an Eastern European perspective, Kott rejected traditional readings to portray Shakespeare as a dramatist of the absurd.1

Kott’s analysis characterized Shakespeare’s plays as inherently skeptical, ridiculing, and antiauthoritarian. By emphasizing a deeply ironic view of political processes, his work resonated with contemporary audiences who were increasingly wary of the manipulations inherent in modern power structures and new media.1

This interpretation proved highly influential, significantly shaping the aesthetic approaches of prominent theatre directors and filmmakers, most notably Peter Brook, whose productions of King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream reflected Kott’s vision of a dark, absurdist Shakespearean universe.1