Abstract: This contribution traces the genesis of a character named Shakespeare in the German-speaking world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and studies his character traits as they appear in Heinrich König’s historical novel Williams Dichten und Trachten (first published in 1839). The progressive individuation of Shakespeare as an aesthetic reference reflects the growing importance of the figure of the author in the reception process, with the Elizabethan poet-dramatist eventually becoming a fictional character and actor in his own day.
