Textual Performances: The Modern Reproduction of Shakespeare's Drama

Contents:

Lukas Erne and Margaret Jane Kidnie, Introduction

Part I: Establishing the Text
1. Leah S. Marcus, The Two Texts of Othello and Early Modern Constructions of Race
2. H. R. Woudhuysen, ‘Work of Permanent Utility’: Editors and Texts, Authorities and Originals
3. Paul Werstine, Housmania: Episodes in Twentieth-Century ‘Critical’ Editing of Shakespeare
4. John Jowett, Addressing Adaptation: Measure for Measure and Sir Thomas More
5. Ernst Honigmann, The New Bibliography and its Critics
6. Sonia Massai, Scholarly Editing and the Shift from Print to Electronic Cultures

Part II: Presenting the Play
7. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, ‘Your sum of parts’: Doubling in Hamlet
8. Michael Warren, The Perception of Error: The Editing and the Performance of the Opening of Coriolanus
9. David Bevington, Modern Spelling: The Hard Choices
10. Margaret Jane Kidnie, The Staging of Shakespeare’s Drama in Print Editions
11. John D. Cox, Open Stage, Open Page? Editing Stage Directions in Early Dramatic Texts
12. John Lavagnino, Two Varieties of Digital Commentary
13. Barbara Hodgdon, New Collaborations with Old Plays: The (Textual) Politics of Performance Commentary


Summary:

This collection brings together leading scholars to examine questions regarding the theory and practice of editing Shakespeare's plays. In particular the essays look at how best to engage editorially with evidence provided by historical research into the playhouse, author's study, and printing house. How are editors of playscripts to mediate history, in its many forms, for modern users? Considering our knowledge of the past is partial (in the sense both of incomplete and ideological), where are we to draw the line between legitimate editorial assistance and unwarranted interference? In what innovative ways might current controversies surrounding the mediation of Shakespeare's drama shape future editorial practice? Focusing on the key points of debate and controversy of the present moment, this collection makes a vital contribution to a better understanding of how editorial practice (on the page and in cyberspace) might develop in the twenty-first century.


Reviews:

Textual Performances: The Modern Reproduction of Shakespeare’s Drama, edited by Lukas Erne and Margaret Jane Kidnie, may well prove to be this year’s most lasting contribution to Shakespeare textual studies. Intent upon surveying the current textual scene, two decades after the publication of The Division of the Kingdoms (1983), Erne and Kidnie solicited essays from the leading players in the field. The resulting collection has a unity that is often lacking in festschriften or volumes of conference papers: the contributions to Textual Performances are uniformly excellent. … This outstanding collection not only attests to the vitality of [textual studies] at the present historical moment, but promises an exceptionally bright and bold future as well. (Shakespeare Survey)

Textual Performances: The Modern Reproduction of Shakespeare’s Drama, edited by Lukas Erne and Margaret Jane Kidnie, thoughtfully argues the case that ‘an awareness of the choices involved in the modern textual reproduction of Shakespeare’s drama, and of the rationale informing them, seems essential for an informed critical response’ (p. 3). They have assembled a distinguished team of editors to review the major revolutions in Shakespearean editorial theory in the last half century, following through some of their implications and questioning some of their premises. (Studies in English Literature)

The thirteen essays and substantial introduction that make up Textual Performances move around Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and between STC and http, with a consistent energy and agility that mark this out as a fine collection. (The Library)

This collection of thirteen essays represents a milestone for textual criticism. Commissioned from a group of distinguished young and more established editors, who have themselves helped shape the history of editing and textual scholarship, the volume re-examines this history and maps out the paths scholars might want to follow in the future. The result is a sense of remarkable range and historical situatedness. These are combined with moments of visionary thinking about ways of conceptualizing the transmission of early modern texts that emerge from experience and an excitement about the possibilities afforded by both old and new technologies. Lukas Erne and Margaret Jane Kidnie's Introduction is lucid, thoughtful, and witty. (English Studies in Canada)

 Written by scholars with an admirable sense of theatrical values, this wide-ranging and accessibly presented volume represents a cutting-edge contribution to the editorial debate about Shakespeare. (Stanley Wells)