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Reading report Elected reading:The Debate about Shakespeares Character, Morals, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany. By: Weiss, Wolfgang. Critical Survey. 2009, Vol. 21 Issue 3, p87-102. 16p. DOI: 10.3167/cs.2009.210307. 数据库: Academic Search Premier Context As a great poet and playwright who lived far away from our time, William Shakespeare was a mystery in terms of his life. In order to have a better understanding about his literary works, a variety of subsequent Shakespeare scholars did all kinds of speculations about his life such as his character, moral and religious belief. According to Wolfgany Weiss, the writer of “The Debate about Shakespeare’s Character, Morals, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany”, there was a passionate discussion mainly about what kind of man Shakespeare was and which religion he believed. What ‘s the relationship between Shakespeare and Germany? Why did german have a debate about Shakespeare? Wolfgany Weiss explained these to us. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Shakespeare was discovered by German poets and critics who chose Shakespeare’s dramas as their literary model. From then on, Shakespeare had a profound impact on German literature. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, Shakespeare became not only widely known but also was naturalized in Germany and enthroned as the third classic German poet beside Goehte and Schiller, which set off a heated discussion about him. First is the debate about his character. There were mainly two opposite opinions about his character. One side appreciated him as a perfect man just like he was a great poet. In these scholars’ eyes, Shakespeare owned great and noble nature. They thought Shakespeare had become one of the great authorities and moral leaders of the German. However, there were a several scholars holding the opposite opinions. They considered Shakespeare as a proud and ambitious man, a social climber who wante