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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.2244  Monday, 11 November 2002

From:           Hardy M. Cook <editor@shaksper.net>
Date:           Monday, November 11, 2002
Subject:        "Introductions, Annotations, and the Electronic Edition"

Dear SHAKSPEReans,

If anyone would care to read the very modest paper I wrote for the
"Introductions and Annotations" seminar of the 2002 International
Shakespeare Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon, it is now available at
the SHAKSPER Website:

http://www.shaksper.net/archives/files/electronic.editing.html

Below are the opening paragraph:

**************
“Introductions, Annotations, and the Electronic Edition”
Hardy M. Cook, Editor of SHAKSPER

In his February 15, 2002, welcoming message, R. A. Foakes remarks, "Not
much seems to have been written on the topic of the seminar" and then
recommends Philip Edwards's "The Function of Commentary" (1984) and his
own "On Finishing a Commentary on King Lear" (1997). In addition to the
Oxford and Arden 3 guidelines, my research has uncovered a handful of
other articles on the topics of introductions and commentaries to
critical editions. In his essay, Foakes states that "Notes have to serve
various explanatory functions, the main ones being to help the reader to
understand textual problems; verbal difficulties; obscure allusions;
references to proverbs, to the Bible and other works Shakespeare used;
ideas, images and customs no longer familiar; and issues arising in
staging the play" (238). The function of explaining "issues arising in
staging the play" constitutes a very obvious difference in introductions
and commentaries to the New Cambridge, Oxford, and Arden 3 Shakespeares
and their preceding multivolume series editions. As Michael Cordner
notes in 1996,

THE LAST TWO to three decades have seen a remarkable development of
performance-based scholarship in the study of Shakespeare. What are the
implications of this for the editor of a Shakespearean play? Both the
major new series of single-play editions now in advanced stages of
publication - the New Cambridge and the Oxford Shakespeare - are
avowedly more responsive to the theatrical dimensions of the texts than
their major predecessor and rival, the New Arden series; similar claims
are being made on behalf of the latter's successor, relaunched as Arden
3 in 1995 with a trio of new editions. (289)

This new emphasis on performance realization rather than on
characterization is apparent, for example, in Lois Potter's Arden 3
<I>The Two Noble Kinsmen</I>, whose introduction is structured:

* The genre: tragicomedy;
* The collaborators;
* The authorship question;
* Collaboration and censorship;
* The date;
* Contexts: public;
* Contexts: literary;
* Contexts: theatrical;
* The play's afterlife; and
* Text.

The "afterlife" section of this edition includes Pre- publication
allusions, Publication history, Adaptation and performance before 1900,
Twentieth-century productions, and Interpretations; in addition, nine of
the sixteen illustrations interspersed throughout the Introduction are
productions stills. With the exception of staging issues, all of the
functions that Foakes identifies in the citation above also apply to
introductions and commentary to <I>The Poems<I>, which I am currently
editing for the Internet Shakespeare Editions. In this short paper, I
will confine my remarks to <I>Venus and Adonis</I> and specifically to
the contributions of feminist theory and to the length of notes as both
affect my editing practices.

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>

DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.

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