Textuality » 4A Interacting
Shakespeare canon
by - (2010-12-21)
Up to 4 A. Shakespeare and His Plays and Theatre
The probem of the text: The originality and date of the plays because at those times there weren’t any copywright They paid no attention to the written text and they were only concerned with the staging of the plays plays were not considered literature in any sensethe quartos and the folios : the unreliable edition were called bad quartos, because they were published in a sheet of paper folded twice to give four leaves the first fair accurate edition of Shakespeare's works is called "First Folio" because it was published on a sheet of paper folded once. The Shakespeare’s text we read today are not the originals but are a consequence of a comparing workProblem of date: Not every play was performed
- we have to guess the date taking into account external and internal evidence