Revising Shakespeare

In Revising Shakespeare Grace Ioppolo addresses the question of Shakespeare's integrity. Through analysis of variant texts spanning the history of the plays, she arrives at an interpretation of Shakespeare as author and reviser. Ioppolo stars with the physical text. As textual studies of King Lear have shown, the text of Shakespeare is not as given. The text is nearly always a revision of another text. Critics can no longer evaluate plots, structure, and themes, nor can scholars debate what constitutes (or how to establish) a copy-text that stands as the most authoritative version of a Shakespeare play, without reconsidering the implications of revision for traditional and modern interpretations. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Canonizing and Constituting Shakespeare 1. Theories of Revision, 1623–1990 2. Revision in the Manuscripts of Shakespeare’s Contemporaries 3. Occasions and Occurrences of Revision in Shakespeare’s Plays 4. Revising Shakespeare Before and After 1596 5. Revising Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, and Othello 6. Revising King Lear and Revising “Theory” APPENDIX. Early Printing History of the Plays SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY NOTES INDEX Ioppolo examines the evidence provided by dramatic manuscripts and early printed texts of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Gradually we see how a recognition of the different components of authorial revision leads to basic changes in how we study, edit, and teach Shakespeare. Ioppolo is the first to place the textual revolution in a broad historical, theatrical, textual, and literary contest. Addresses the question of Shakespeare's "integrity". Through analysis of variant texts spanning the history of the plays, the author produces a new conception of Shakespeare as a creator and recreator, viewer and reviewer, writer and rewriter of his dramatic world.