The works of William Shakespeare and the cultural phenomenon that has materialised around the playwright's name now appear to be nowhere more at home or unconsciously accepted than in the United States of America. As Shakespeare is considered the pre-eminent writer in the English language, for many people it has been easy to accept his reception in America without question. However, there is much to suggest that if citizens of the United States in the nineteenth century had followed the rhetoric of the original leaders of the Revolution, Americans might have been expected to reject Shakespeare as an unwanted English anachronism. After all, for most native-born Americans, the plays and poetry of Shakespeare were theoretically a product of a foreign culture. Shakespeare utilised seemingly archaic elaborate language to tell the story of pre-American, European class-based society and hereditary aristocracy.

The thirteen original states had been unified by their rejection of the ‘old world’. In the words of writer Thomas Paine, independence was to mean ‘England to Europe: America to itself’. The leaders of the colonists appeared to preach a doctrine of rebellion against ‘old world’ politics and values. The traditional European social hierarchy, a key component in many of Shakespeare's plays, was seen as a manifestation of tyranny, and the leaders of the colonists, now proclaiming themselves Americans, united their people behind the twin slogans of Freedom and Equality.