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Shakespeare and Text is built on the research and experience of a leading expert on Shakespeare editing and textual studies. The first edition has proved its value as an indispensable and unique guide to its topic. It takes Shakespeare readers to the very foundation of his work, explaining how his plays first took shape in the theatre where writing was part of a larger collective enterprise. The account examines the early modern printing industry that
produced the earliest surviving texts of Shakespeare's plays. It describes the roles of publisher and printer, the controls exerted through the Stationers' Company, and the technology of printing. A chapter is
devoted to the book that gathered Shakespeare's plays together for the first time, the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare and Text goes on to survey the major developments in textual studies over the past century. It builds on the recent upsurge of interest in textual theory, and deals with issues such as collaboration, the instability of the text, the relationship between theatre culture and print culture, and the book as a material object. Later chapters examine the current critical
edition, explaining the procedures that transform early texts in to a very different cultural artefact, the edition in which we regularly encounter Shakespeare. The new revised edition,
which builds on Jowett's research for the New Oxford Shakespeare, engages with scholarship of the past decade, work that has transformed our understanding of textual versions, has opened up the taxonomy of Shakespeare's texts, and has significantly extended the picture of Shakespeare as a co-author. A new chapter describes digital text, digital editing, and their interface with the traditional media.
Shakespeare and Text is built on the research and experience of a leading expert on Shakespeare editing and textual studies. The first edition has proved its value as an indispensable and unique guide to its topic. It takes Shakespeare readers to the very foundation of his work, explaining how his plays first took shape in the theatre where writing was part of a larger collective enterprise. The account examines the early modern printing industry that
produced the earliest surviving texts of Shakespeare's plays. It describes the roles of publisher and printer, the controls exerted through the Stationers' Company, and the technology of printing. A chapter is
devoted to the book that gathered Shakespeare's plays together for the first time, the First Folio of 1623. Shakespeare and Text goes on to survey the major developments in textual studies over the past century. It builds on the recent upsurge of interest in textual theory, and deals with issues such as collaboration, the instability of the text, the relationship between theatre culture and print culture, and the book as a material object. Later chapters examine the current critical
edition, explaining the procedures that transform early texts in to a very different cultural artefact, the edition in which we regularly encounter Shakespeare. The new revised edition,
which builds on Jowett's research for the New Oxford Shakespeare, engages with scholarship of the past decade, work that has transformed our understanding of textual versions, has opened up the taxonomy of Shakespeare's texts, and has significantly extended the picture of Shakespeare as a co-author. A new chapter describes digital text, digital editing, and their interface with the traditional media.
Introduction
1: Author and Collaborator
2: Theatre
3: The Material Book
4: The First Folio
5: Mapping the Text
6: Emendation and Versification
7: Modernization and Stage Directions
8: The Digital Text
Appendix 1. A Passage from Hamlet in Q1, Q2, and F1
Appendix 2. Shakespeare in Early Editions and Manuscripts
Glossary of Key Terms
Notes
Further Reading
John Jowett is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare
Institute, University of Birmingham. He is General Editor of the
New Oxford Shakespeare, a member of the editorial boards of Arden
Early Modern Drama and the Malone Society, an Associate General
Editor of the Oxford Collected Works of Thomas Middleton, and an
editor of the original Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works. He has
edited Richard III and Timon of Athens for the Oxford
Shakespeare series, and Sir Thomas More for the Arden Shakespeare.
He has published widely on textual culture and textual theory.
Emphasising the multifaceted nature of the Shakespearean text, this
book written by a leading expert in the field proves both
illuminating and useful, and offers valuable insights into early
modern editions as well as modern printed and digital ones. While
it will be most helpful to students interested in Shakespeare and
in textual studies -- especially to post-graduate students
specialising in the early modern period -- it will also provide the
general readers with much-needed clarifications on the authorship
of Shakespeare's texts thanks to contextually-based examples.
*Sophie Chiari, Cercles*
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