Shakespeare, Milton and Eighteenth-Century Literary Editing: The Beginnings of Interpretative Scholarship (Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought, Series Number 35)

This study sets out to investigate the theoretical and especially the interpretative bases of eighteenth-century literary editing. Extended chapters on Shakespearean and Miltonic commentary and editing demonstrate that the work of pioneering editors and commentators, such as Patrick Hume, Lewis Theobald, Zachary Pearce and Edward Capell, was based on developed, sophisticated, and often clearly articulated theories and methods of textual understanding and explanation. Marcus Walsh relates these interpretative theories and methods to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglican biblical hermeneutics, and to a number of key debates in modern editorial theory. Frontmatter List of illustrations (page x) Acknowledgments (page xi) Introduction (page 1) 1 Some theoretical perspectives for the study of eighteenth-century editing (page 4) 2 Making sense of Scripture: biblical hermeneutics in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England (page 30) 3 Making sense of Milton: the editing of Paradise Lost (page 53) 4 Making sense of Shakespeare: editing from Pope to Capell (page 111) Conclusion (page 199) Select bibliography (page 202) Index (page 217) Marcus Walsh demonstrates that the work of pioneering editors of Milton and Shakespeare in the eighteenth century, was based on sophisticated and clearly articulated theories and methods. He relates these to contemporary interpretations of the Bible and key issues in modern editorial theory. To a modern eye, the work of the first editors of Shakespeare and Milton in the eighteenth century can seem most unfamiliar. Marcus Walsh. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.