This collection of essays is part of a new phase in Shakespeare studies. The traditional view of Shakespeare is that he was a man of the theatre who showed no interest in the printing of his plays, producing works that are only fully realised in performance. This view has recently been challenged by critics arguing that Shakespeare was a literary ‘poet-playwright’, concerned with his readers as well as his audiences. Shakespeare’s Book offers a vital contribution to this critical debate, and examines its wider implications for how we conceive of Shakespeare and his works. Bringing together an impressive group of international Shakespeare scholars, the volume explores both Shakespeare’s relationship with actual printers, patrons, and readers, and the representation of writing, reading, and print within his works themselves.
Table of Content
Introduction – Richard Wilson, Jane Rickard, and Richard Meek
Part I Books
1. ‘An index and obscure prologue’: Books and theatre in Shakespeare’s literary authorship – Patrick Cheney
2. ‘A Man in Print’?: Shakespeare and the Representation of the Press – Helen Smith
3. ‘Penned Speech’: Seeing and Not Seeing in King Lear – Richard Meek
4. ‘A Stringless Instrument’: Richard II and the Defeat of Poetry – Richard Wilson
Part II Texts
5. Foucault’s Epistemic Shift and Verbatim Repetition in Shakespeare – Gabriel Egan
6. ‘As sharp as a Pen’: Henry V and its texts – Duncan Salkeld
7. Shakespeare’s Deletions and False Starts, Mark 2 – E. A. J. Honigmann
Part III Readers
8. The First Folio: ‘My Shakespeare’/‘Our Shakespeare’: Whose Shakespeare? – George Donaldson
9. The ‘First’ Folio in Context: The Folio Collections of Shakespeare, Jonson and King James – Jane Rickard
10. A New Early Reader of Shakespeare – Stanley Wells
11. ‘Too long for a play’: Shakespeare Beyond Page and Stage – John Lyon
Afterword – Lukas Erne
Index
About the author
Richard Wilson is Professor of Renaissance Literature in the Department of English at the University of Lancaster
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