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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0508  Wednesday, 27 August 2008

From:       Walter Cannon <CannonW@central.edu>
Date:       Saturday, 23 Aug 2008 23:27:31 -0500
Subject:    RE: Barbara Hodgdon's _The Taming of the Shrew_ and Keir Elam's 
_Twelfth Night_

I must likewise disagree with John Brigg's comments on Keir Elam's Arden3 
Twelfth Night, and say that I have found it a delight to read--thoughtful, 
helpful, and engaging. It certainly fulfills the intent of the general editors 
for this series to "present the plays as texts for performance, and make 
appropriate reference to stage, film and television versions, as well as 
introducing the reader to the range of critical approaches to the plays" 
(xvi-xvii). The edition does all this and then some. The introduction is nearly 
twice as long as the Lothian and Craik edition and, in addition to a discussion 
of various topics and issues that have occupied scholars, critics, and 
spectators over the past 400 years, Elam discusses 120 productions of Twelfth 
Night from the 1602 performance at Middle Temple Hall to the Stephen Beresford 
production at The Albery Theatre in 2004. Many of the editorial glosses and 
notes at the bottom of the pages are directed toward performance and the stage 
with frequent references to contemporary performances choices that illustrate a 
stage direction, a textual nuance, or an interpretation that helps that reader 
to link the text to the stage, and stage to text. The many illustrations (31) in 
this edition are helpful to the student and specialist alike as are the three 
appendices--one especially lucid one on the text and its production and 
transmission, another on casting, and the third on music which includes the 
musical transcriptions from the Arden 2. Overall, I found Elam's edition--the 
introduction, notes, and appendices--lively, stimulating, capacious, and 
careful.


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