The primary objective of this course will be to explore various aspects of the production, circulation, and reception of Shakespeare's texts. By paying close attention to the activities of writing, publication, and reading within the specific context of the London book trade, we will have the opportunity to examine a range of important historical and cultural issues linked to the construction of Shakespeare's authorship. It is hoped that the course will enrich and complicate our reading of Shakespeare's plays. Requirements for the course will include presentations, informal in-class projects and a 20-25 page final collaborative paper.

Prerequisites: Graduate course in early modern literature or approval of instructor.

Assigned Texts:

Course Pack I: Assigned Readings

Course Pack II: Shakespearean Texts

Wells and Taylor, William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion

Blayney, The First Folio of Shakespeare

 

Week I:

• Wed. Jan 20: Introduction

Week 2:

• Wed. Jan 27: Jacques Derrida, "The Exorbitant. Question of Method," Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, pp. 1-57. Handouts.

Week 3:

• Wed. Feb 3: Scott McMillin, "Professional Playwrighting," pp. 225-238; Jeffrey Masten, "Playwrighting, Authorship, and Collaboration," pp. 357-382; Scott McMillin, "Hand D.," pp. 135-160; Richard Dutton, "The Birth of The Author," pp. 72-92.

Week 4:

• Wed. Feb 10: Laurie E. Maguire, "The Craft of Printing 1600," pp. 434-49;; Thomas L. Berger and Jesse Lander, "Shakespeare's Plays in Print, 1593-1640," pp. 395-413; Heidi Brayman Hackel, "'The Great Variety of Readers' and Early Modern Reading Practices," 139-157.

Week 5:

• Wed. Feb 17: Peter Blayney, The First Folio of Shakespeare.; Blayney, "The Publication of Playbooks," pp. 383-423.

Week 6:

• Wed. Feb. 24: Laurie E. Maguire, Shakespearean Suspect Texts: The "Bad" Quartos and their Contexts, pp. 3-72; W.W. Greg, "The Rationale of Copytext," pp. 374-91.

Week 7:

• Wed. Mar 3: Stephen Orgel, "What is a Text?" pp. 83- 87; Margretta De Grazia and Peter Stallybrass, "The Materiality of the Shakespearean Text," pp. 256-83; Stephen Orgel, "Acting Scripts, Performing Texts," pp. 251-94.

Week 8:

• Wed. Mar 10: Paul Werstine, "Shakespeare," pp. 253-282; Stephen Orgel, "What is an Editor?" pp. 23-39; David Scott Kastan, "The Mechanics of Culture: Editing Shakespeare Today," pp. 30-37; W. Speed Hill, "Where We Are and How We Got Here: Editing After Post Structuralism, pp. 38-46; Werstine, "Editing After the End of Editing," pp. 47-54.

Week 9:

• Wed. Mar 17: Spring Break

Week 10:

• Wed. Mar 24: Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, pp. 1-109.

Week 11:

• Wed. Mar 31: Text Work and Textual Companion

Week 12:

• Wed. Apr 7: Text Work and Textual Companion

Week 13:

• Wed. Apr 14: Text Work and Textual Companion

Week 14:

• Wed. Apr 21: Text Work and Textual Companion

Week 15:

• Wed. Apr 28: Text Work and Textual Companion

Week 16:

• To Be Arranged: Conclusion, discussion of final papers, dinner at my house.

Week 2:

• Johns, Adrian. The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998. 1-57.
• Derrida, Jacques. "The Exorbitant. Question of Method." Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern. A Reader. Ed. Sean Burke. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995. 117-24.

Week 3:

• McMillin, Scott. "Professional Playwrighting." A Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. David Scott Kastan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 1999. 226-238.
• Masten, Jeffrey. "Playwrighting: Authorship and Collaboration." A New History of Early English Drama. Ed. David Scott Kastan and John D. Cox. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 357-82.
• McMillin, Scott. "Hand D." The Elizabethan Theatre and The Book of Sir Thomas More. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1987. 135-60.
• Dutton, Richard. "The Birth of the Author." Texts and Cultural Change in Early Modern England. Ed. Cedric C. Brown and Arthur F. Marotti. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1997. 153-178.

Week 4:

• Maguire, Laurie E. "The Craft of Printing(1600)." A Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. David Scott Kastan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 1999. 434-49.
• Berger, Thomas L. and Jesse M. Lander. "Shakespeare in Print, 1593-1640." A Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. David Scott Kastan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 1999. 395-413.
• Hackel, Heidi Brayman. "The 'Great Variety' of Readers and Early Modern Reading Practices." A Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. David Scott Kastan. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Inc, 1999. 139-57.

Week 5:

• Blayney, Peter W.M.The First Folio of Shakespeare. Washington: Folger Library Publications, 1991.
• Blayney, Peter W.M. "The Publication of Playbooks." New History of Early English Drama. Eds. John D.Cox and David Scott Kastan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. 383- 422.

Week 6:

• Maguire, Laurie E. Shakespearean Suspect Texts: The "Bad" Quartos and their Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 3-72.
• Greg, W.W. "The Rationale of Copy-Text." Collected Papers. Ed. J.C. Maxwell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966. 374-391.

Week 7:

• Orgel, Stephen. "What is a Text?" Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 26 (1981): 3-6.
• De Grazia, Margreta and Peter Stallybrass. "The Materiality of the Shakespearean Text." With Peter Stallybrass.Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993): 255-284.
• Orgel, Stephen. "Acting Scripts, Performing Texts." Crisis of Editing: Texts of the English Renaissance. Ed. Randall McLeod. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1993. 251-294.

Week 8:

• Werstine, Paul. "Shakespeare." Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research, Ed. D.C. Greetham. New York: Modern Language Association, 1995. 253-81.
• Orgel, Stephen. "What is an Editor?" Shakespeare Studies XXIV (1996): 23-39.
• Kastan, David Scott. "The Mechanics of Culture: Editing Shakespeare Today."Shakespeare Studies (1997 XXIV: 23-30.
• Hill, W. Speed. "Where We Are and How We Got Here: Editing after Post-structuralism" Shakespeare Studies XXIV (1996): 38-46.
• Werstine, Paul. "Editing after the End of Editing." Shakespeare Studies XXIV (1996): 47- 54.

Week 10:

• Wells, Stanley and Gary Taylor. William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.