Bardolatry is excessive admiration of William Shakespeare.[1] Shakespeare has been known as "the Bard" since the eighteenth century.[2] One who idolizes Shakespeare is known as a bardolator. The term bardolatry, derived from Shakespeare's sobriquet "the Bard of Avon" and the Greek word latria "worship" (as in idolatry, worship of idols), was coined by George Bernard Shaw in the preface to his collection Three Plays for Puritans published in 1901.[3][1] Shaw professed to dislike Shakespeare as a thinker and philosopher because Shaw believed that Shakespeare did not engage with social problems as Shaw did in his own plays.[4]
- ^ a b OED: bardolatry.
- ^ Karlin 2013, p. 23.
- ^ Shaw 2003, p. xxxi.
- ^ Lenker 2001, p. 5.