Disappointing
|
|
This edition is not worth spending the extra money on. The text is cramped, with no explanatory notes on the page. A poor edition to try to study from. I wish I had bought the RSC edition.
|
|
All the World's a Stage.
|
The 1598 loss of their theater's lease should have been a major blow to the Lord Chamberlain's Men, one of Elizabethan England's premier acting troupes, who had gained even more popularity by teaming up with one Will Shakespeare, a Warwickshire glover's son come to London some six years earlier in pursuit of his Muse, leaving behind a wife and three children; daughter Susanna, born but seven months into his marriage, and twins Hamnet and Judith, who'd followed two years later. Yet, what to another company might have spelled "present death" only brought greater fame and fortune to the one boasting, in addition to Master Shakespeare's talents, those of Richard Burbage: not only a superb tragedian but also his troupe's financier and, together with brother Cuthbert, happily able to afford the construction of a new theater in Bankside, on the opposite side of the River Thames. Prophetically, the company named their new home "The Globe" and endowed it with a motto which, in approximate translation, audiences of one of the first plays produced there -- "As You Like It" -- would soon also hear pronounced from the stage, and which sums up the essence of the Bard's plays better than anything else: "Totus mundus agit histrionem" -- "All the world's a stage."
The new playhouse's name and motto were apposite not only because the era did indeed consider a stage a model of the world (the area above was referred to as heaven, the area below as hell, and characters would often appear accordingly: as such, Hamlet's father is heard crying "below [stage]" after his encounter with the Prince), but first and foremost because Shakespeare's plays themselves, individually as well as collectively, represent a microcosm of human relationships and behavior virtually unparalleled to this day: Laced with murderous schemes, revenge, and the search for justice, love, and peace of mind, but also comedy, all-too-human fallibility and great nobility of spirit, they delve into the human mind's darkest recesses and soar to its greatest heights; exploring greed, envy, ambition, guilt, remorse and pure evil, next to compassion, generosity, humility, innocence, fidelity, cleverness, boundless cheers and optimism; all interwoven in timeless plots unmatched in wit, variety, construction, and richness of characters.
Yet, for all this, the biggest difficulty remaining to modern editors and readers alike is that while Shakespeare himself didn't seek the publication of his plays, in the absence of anything approximating modern copyright laws, he was unable to prevent their publication by others, in so-called "quarto" editions, often based on unreliable transcripts made during or after a performance. Only after his death, in 1623, his former fellow-actors John Hemmings and Henry Condell published 37 of his plays "cured and perfect of their limbs" -- i.e., restored to their author's true intentions -- in a volume since referred to as the "First Folio."
Alas, authoritative weight though it has, even the latter doesn't conclusively answer what the Bard intended as the final version of these 37 plays. For one thing, research shows that even some of the Folio texts were edited by others; most prominently so "Macbeth," where Thomas Middleton inserted, inter alia, the witch queen Hecate as an additional character. Secondly, quarto editions of several plays published prior to the "First Folio" (especially of "Henry IV Part 2," "Hamlet," "Troilus and Cressida," "Othello," and "King Lear") are widely believed to represent earlier (or rival) drafts written by Shakespeare himself, and thus accorded considerable authoritative weight of their own. Often, these plays are therefore presented (both in print and on stage) by "conflating" both versions' texts. In the interest of purity, the editors of this particular volume have eschewed that approach, choosing instead to reproduce the Folio text throughout (with gently modernized spelling), because this was probably the text originally used on stage, and appending the passages most frequently added from the rivaling quartos at the end of the respective plays. Thus, this edition's reader will find Hamlet musing in "To be, or not to be" about "enterprises of great pith and moment" whose currents "turn awry and lose the name of action" (not "of great pitch and moment," as in the 1604 "Second Quarto"); he will, however, have to consult the appendix to find the Prince's reflections on that "stamp of one defect" so prominently featuring in Sir Laurence Olivier's movie, or his vows of "bloody thoughts" after encountering Fortinbras. Only in the case of "Lear," the editors chose to fully include both rivaling versions -- that of the First Folio and that of the 1608 quarto -- because here, the omission of entire scenes and reassignment of numerous pieces of dialogue essentially transforms the Folio text into a new play vis-a-vis the 1608 quarto.
Painstakingly researched and an obvious labor of love, this volume moreover restores the plays' original titles ("All Is True" instead of "Henry VIII," etc.), and also contains Shakespeare's long poems and sonnets, brief accounts on the lost plays ("Cardenio," "Love's Labour's Won"), and -- with appropriate caveats -- the texts of works of only partial/uncertain attribution, such as "The Two Noble Kinsmen," sundry poetry, and (for the first time) "Edward III," as well as the editorially and topically so problematic "Sir Thomas More." Background and supplemental materials include introductions to Shakespeare's life, career and language and on the Elizabethan theater, a user's guide, a list of contemporary references to the Bard, commendatory poems and prefaces of his works (including those of the "First Folio"), a glossary, an ample reading list, as well as a short introduction to each work. At well over 1000 pages a brick even in paperback format, this isn't the place to turn for a complete scholarly review of any given play -- for that, the reader is well-advised to consult this volume's "Textual Companion" or one of the many excellent editions of the individual plays -- but a marvelously-presented one-volume resource on the legacy of the playwright whose works, as already friendly rival Ben Jonson rightly prophesied, would last "for all time."
|
|
|
The Best Text
|
|
The Best Text and Authority On Shakespeare (Full Stop)
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada