Early Shakespeare Editions

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Nicholas Rowe, the editor of the first complete edition of Shakespeare, 1709

The term Early Shakespeare Editions is used to describe the works by Shakespeare from the period between 1709 and 1821. This era begins with the classic editions of Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer and Warburton, followed by the early critical editions of Johnson, Capell and Steevens and ends with the posthumous publication of the 21-volume Variorum edition by Edmond Malone. They form the basis of all modern editions.

introduction

The first editors of Shakespeare's works in the 18th century, starting with Rowe in 1709, based their editions on the First Folio in the fourth edition of 1685 and assumed that this was the best quality text. In the second half of the 18th century this assumption was called into question. In the foreword to his edition of 1767/68, Edward Capell described his discovery that the editors of the First Folio had sometimes based their texts on four-high editions of inferior quality. This contradicted the self-description of the working method of Heminges and Condell, with their edition they had replaced the previously widespread four-high editions of questionable quality in all cases by using authentic manuscripts. Consequently, Edmond Malone declared in his edition of 1790 that when editing Shakespeare's plays, preference should be given to the oldest surviving texts. This editing principle (choose the oldest text), in a sense the “Capell-Malone paradigm” of Shakespeare research, dominated the editing practice for almost 150 years until the beginning of the 20th century. It was marked by a deep-seated skepticism about the value of the First Folio.

Thus, in the practice of editing Shakespeare editions, the following epochs result:

  • 17th century: Reprints of the First Folio up to 1685 and reprints of the quartos up to the beginning of the 18th century
  • 18th century: Rowe to Johnson, the classic (interdependent) editions based on the fourth folio edition
  • 18./19. Century: From Capell and Malone to Pollard, the era of the quarto-based editions stretches with the attempt to restore the original text using the oldest prints. In the middle of the 19th century, the Furness-Variorum (1871–1912) was the last edition from a single source. The first Cambridge Shakespeare edition (1863–66) is the first edition by a collective of academic authors.
  • 20th century: Pollard's rehabilitation of the First Folio and the beginning of the New Bibliography with WW Greg .

The classic editions in the 18th century

Nicholas Rowe

Rowes is the earliest Shakespeare publisher known by name after the anonymous editors from F 1 to F 4 . Its edition from 1709, which was commissioned by the publisher Jacob Tonson, is, in textual terms, a reprint of the fourth folio from 1685 in a handy multi-volume four-high format. It was published as the first multi-volume edition to be provided with engravings for illustration. Rowe (knowing that they existed) made no use of the first folio edition or the early quartos. He modernized the pronunciation, punctuation and grammar of the text, standardized the names of the dramatic characters, wrote a “dramatis personae” list (a list of the characters involved) for each piece, completed the nudes and systematically corrected all stage directions (“entrance”) and "exit"). He corrected incorrect spellings and eliminated incorrect line breaks ("mislineations"), for example in cases in which verses were set as prose. In the introduction to his edition he wrote the first biography of Shakespeare. From today's perspective, Rowe's edition is the beginning of a development towards a "normalization" of the Shakespeare text.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope's edition from 1723-1725 is based on that of Rowe. However, he eliminated all so-called Shakespeare apocrypha from his edition, which had been included in the third folio version of 1664 and was the first to make comparisons with the four-high editions available to him. He improved the corrections of incorrect line breaks begun by Rowe and added other locations. He designed the scene division according to the Italian-French model, whereby the additional appearance of a dramatically significant person was reflected in a new scene. Its relineations were almost complete and have been adopted by all modern publishers to this day. But he was also of the opinion that Shakespeare, as a poet, had agreed to the aesthetic principles of the 18th century and attributed all deviations from them to typesetters and printers. As a result, he adjusted the text in line with the classicist taste of his time and his own understanding of literature and language. His edition is considered to be partly "constructed on the basis of aesthetic criteria". He highlighted “shining passages” and, in his opinion, banned bad or incorrect text passages in footnotes. The foreword to his edition is considered to be an influential testimony to the literary criticism of his time.

Lewis Theobald

Lewis Theobald's edition of 1733 is based on the one hand on the text by Pope and on the other hand is a critical reaction to Pope's edition. He first wrote a sarcastic criticism of Pope in 1726 under the title Shakespeare restored ("Shakespeare restored"). Pope responded with a brilliant reply, the derisive poem The Dunciad . Theobald is considered to be the first editor to use the methods previously developed for classical texts and the Bible in Shakespeare's case. He expressly rejected arbitrary interference in the text and sued for the authority of the early prints ("older copies"). In cases in which the text appears to be irredeemably destroyed, attempts at restoration should be based on "reason or authority". Despite Pope's elegant answer, Theobald's edition was successful: It was reprinted seven times in the 18th century and almost all later editors appreciated Theobald's judgments on issues relating to editions. Contemporary authors therefore call him “the first Shakespeare scholar”.

Thomas Hanmer and William Warburton

The edition by Thomas Hanmer from 1744 is based on the text by Theobald. It is not held in high esteem among scholars. Despite some appropriate corrections, it is regarded as a purely decorative luxury edition without any scientific value. William Warburton published his edition in 1747, as did Hanmer with reference to Theobald. Today his edition is seen as not very original, he is considered unreasonable (“obtuse”) and his interpretations as arbitrary. Wells and Taylor explain that he only published the "detritus" of his collaboration with Theobald and that his reputation would be better if he hadn't written anything. In response to Warburton's Edition, Thomas Edwards published the pamphlet Supplement to Warburton's Edition of Shakespeare in 1748 . later called The Canons of Criticism , in which he gives satirical recommendations for text-critical work:

  • A critic has the right to claim that an author wrote what he should have written.
  • The critic has the right to change any text he does not understand.

The critical editions in the 18th and 19th centuries

Samuel Johnson

Johnson's 1773 Shakespeare edition

Johnson published his eight-volume edition in 1765. In the judgment of today's scholars, it does not represent a significant advance over the previous editions. However, he is held in high regard for his accurate judgment and some scholars respectfully refer to him as “Dr. Johnson ". Dr. Johnson is best known for the preface to its edition. It is considered a monument of literary criticism, as a turning point, away from a classicist towards a romantic drama theory. Johnson describes Shakespeare as a “poet of nature”, the characters he creates are unadulterated descendants of an ordinary humanity (“genuine progeny of common humanity”) and significant for us because they reflect our actual experiences. He rejected the neoclassical drama concept based on Aristotle (mainly represented by Voltaire in France, Thomas Rymer in England and Gottsched in Germany) with its demand for a unity of place, time and action on the stage and defended Shakespeare's violations of the principles of Regular drama as well as his tendency to cross genre boundaries. Johnson called for a historicizing process in the edition: an editor should endeavor to read the books the author had read, his writings should be compared with those of his time, and he advocated the view that the first edition of the folio Must have authority over all subsequent ones. With his demands he encouraged the subsequent editors Steevens, Reed and Malone to work on a variorum. This ad-fontes attitude of Johnson meant a complete break with the previous practice of editing Shakespeare's editions.

Edward Capell

Edward Capell's 1768 edition of Shakespeare's works was the first to offer a revised text and is considered a remarkably clean edition. A few years after the publication of his edition he published an appendix ( Notes and Various Readings. 1774 and 1779–83), the essay School of Shakespeare. contains, in which Capell points to parallels between the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Capell collected quartos over a period of thirty years. He was the first editor to recognize the value of the Stationers' Register , he used Francis Meress Palladis Tamia , examined Shakespeare's use of Raphael Holinsheds Chronicles , Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's parallel biographies , and explored "the Origin of Shakespeare's Fables ." Capell was very careful in his work. He spent years copying the text of the dramas from the quartos at his disposal and using these notes for his edition. His edition was thus in practice the break with the bad tradition (to build your own edition on the previous one and thus to accumulate mistakes and errors), which Johnson had theoretically demanded.

He also claimed in the publication published by him in 1760 Prolusions; or, Select Pieces of Ancient Poetry, Compil'd with great care From Their several original and offer'd to the Publicke as Specimens of the Integrity That should be Found in the Editions of worthy Authors for him to Shakespeare Apocrypha counting The work of King Edward III first took the authorship of Shakespeare and included it in this collection. The Shakespeare authorship of King Edward III , in contrast to Capell, was denied by all previous and contemporary Shakespeare scholars and editors and was vehemently denied by the majority of Shakespeare scholars after Capell for a long time into the 20th century disputed.

George Steevens

In 1766 Steevens published a reprint of the quarto texts available to him under the title: Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare. A few years later (1773) he published the first edition of his Shakespeare edition. He used Johnson's text for this and expanded it in the sense of a Variorum edition. In 1778 he got a second edition. In 1780 Edmond Malone added two volumes of supplements to the Steevens edition. Isaac Reed revised Steevens' edition again in 1785 and Steevens himself got a final 15-volume edition in 1793.

Edmond Malone

Title page of Malone's essay on the chronology of Shakespearean dramas

While Capell, who like Malone was a historian, emphasized the importance of the ancient texts, Edmond Malone turned his attention to the time-related circumstances of the emergence of Shakespeare's works. He published the first edition of his edition in 1790. It was not completed until more than 10 years after his death by James Boswell, the younger, in 1821 in the form of a 21-volume edition. His edition was the first real Variorum and a model for later undertakings by Furness . His work was continued for over half a century by other editors and only replaced in importance by the Cambridge edition by WG Clark, WA Wright and J. Glover from 1863-66. Malone is considered one of Shakespeare's greatest scholars, and his edition is considered by many to be the best of the 18th century. His commitment was not to rest until every ambiguity in working on the text had been resolved. He examined court records, wills, baptismal records, and travel reports. He worked tirelessly to distinguish meaningful documents from flimsy claims. He wrote the first account of the Elizabethan theater (Account to the English Stage) and the first systematic investigation into the chronology of Shakespeare's works ("An attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays attributed to Shakespeare were written."). His detective skills also helped him uncover two literary scams: the forgeries of Thomas Chatterton and that of William Henry Ireland.

literature

Web links

Commons : Capell's 1768 edition of Shakespeare's works  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Barbara A. Mowat: The reproduction of Shakespeare's texts. In: Grazia Cambridge Companion. P. 17; Quote: "In the Capell-Malone-textual world, the Editor ... often gives preference to the Quarto text over the Folio Counterpart ..."
  2. ^ Nicholas Rowe: The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare. 6 Vol. London 1709. Foreword . See also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. Time, man, work, posterity. 5th, revised and supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 221.
  3. ↑ See Michael Dobson , Stanley Wells (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001, 2nd rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 472. See also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. Time, man, work, posterity. 5th, revised and supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 221.
  4. ↑ Alexander Pope: The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare. 6 vol. London 1723-25. Preface .
  5. ↑ See Michael Dobson , Stanley Wells (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001, 2nd rev. Edition 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , p. 439. See also Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. Time, man, work, posterity. 5th, revised and supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 221.
  6. ^ Lewis Theobald: The Works of Mr. William Shakespeare. 7 Vol. London 1733. Foreword .
  7. ^ Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 54. The indication in TxC "1728" as the year of writing is incorrect: EB article. and: Dobson Oxford Companion. Article Lewis Theobald. P. 469.
  8. ^ Text from "The Dunciad" on Bartleyby.
  9. ^ Dobson Oxford Companion. Article Lewis Theobald. P. 469.
  10. ↑ Halliday. Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. 1964. Article: Editors of Shakespeare. P. 148.
  11. ^ Sir Thomas Hanmer, 4th Baronet: The Works of Shakespeare. 6 vol. Oxford 1743-44.
  12. ^ Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 53f. "Hanmer's edition ... was one of the worst in the eighteenth century."
  13. ^ William Warburton: The Works of Shakespeare. 8 vol. London 1747.
  14. ^ Dobson Oxford Companion. Article: William Warburton . P. 516.
  15. ^ Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 54.
  16. ^ Wells and Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 54.
  17. ^ Samuel Johnson: The Plays of William Shakespeare. 8 Vol. London 1765. Foreword .
  18. ^ Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 55.
  19. ↑ Harold Bloom. Shakespeare. P. 338: "I deeply adore Johnson and especially the Shakespearean interpreter Johnson ..."
  20. ^ Dobson Oxford Companion. Article Samuel Johnson. P. 225.
  21. ↑ Edward Capell: Mr. William Shakespeare. His Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. 10 vol. London 1767-68.
  22. ^ Dobson Oxford Companion. Article Edward Capell. P. 66.
  23. ↑ After his death he bequeathed his collection to Trinity College, Cambridge. Halliday: A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. Article Edward Capell . P. 82.
  24. ^ Halliday: A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. Article: Editors of Shakespeare. P. 148.
  25. ^ Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 55.
  26. ↑ See Richard Proudfoot and Nicola Bennett (Eds.): King Edward III . The Arden Shakespeare. Third Series. Bloomsbury Academic, revised edition London 2017, ISBN 978-1903436387 , Preface, p. XVIIf. and Introduction, pp. 1ff. See also Michael Dobson , Stanley Wells (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford University Press, 2nd Edition, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-870873-5 , pp. 103f. See also the overarching general presentation by Christa Jansohn: Doubtful Shakespeare: on the Shakespeare apocrypha and their reception from the Renaissance to the 20th century. Studies in English Literature, ed. by Dieter Mehl , Volume 11, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-8258-5133-8 , here in particular pp. 12-14, 17ff., p. 51ff. and 77ff.
  27. ^ Dobson Oxford Companion. Article George Steevens. by Marcus Walsh. P. 449.
  28. ↑ George Steevens: The Plays of William Shakespeare. 10 vol. London 1773.
  29. ^ FE Halliday: A Shakespeare Companion 1564-1964. Article George Steevens. P. 474.
  30. ^ Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 55.
  31. ^ Edmond Malone: The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. 10 vol. London 1790.
  32. ^ Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. Textual Companion. P. 55f.
  33. ^ Dobson Oxford Companion. Article Edmund Malone. P. 277.