The article is devoted to the problem of searching for “places of memory”, variants of national self-identity in the English culture of the Enlightenment era. It is shown that the long-term Anglo-French political rivalry prevented the use of the experience of continental neighbors in art, and the long-standing tradition of the historical genre, representing timeless eternal ethical values, has almost exhausted itself. English cultural figures turned to the national cultural heritage in the field of theatrical art, canonizing the personality and work of one of the playwrights of the turn of the XVI–XVII centuries W. Shakespeare.