Editing Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.8 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2015

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Just what exactly does it mean to edit the works of Shakespeare, particularly since we have no surviving manuscript copies? Why is it that new editions of the plays continue to be published? In this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited, Rebecca Sheir interviews Paul Werstine and Suzanne Gossett about the how and why of editing Shakespeare. Since 1989, Paul Werstine has been the co-editor of the Folger Editions, along with Barbara Mowat. He’s also a professor of English at King’s University College in London, Ontario. Suzanne Gossett is co-general-textual editor of "The Norton Shakespeare, 3rd Edition" and professor emerita of English at Loyola University in Chicago. She has also edited the Arden Shakespeare edition of Pericles and is a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America. The title of this episode is "The Dedicated Words Which Writers Use." "The dedicated words which writers use / Of their fair subject, blessing every book." -SONNET 82 From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published September 9, 2015. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Aileen Humphreys at WAMU-FM in Washington and Mary Gaffney at WBEZ, Chicago.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:05.0	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:08.0	At the time that this is being recorded all 38 plays as well as the sonnets and poems that comprise
0:14.0	the Folger Library Shakespeare editions have been available to the public for the past five years.
0:19.0	This isn't an ad, and just to prove it,
0:21.6	the third Norton edition of the works of Shakespeare is also about to be published.
0:26.6	We're taking this opportunity to examine just what it means to edit the works of Shakespeare.
0:32.6	Our guest are two people with the authority to discuss this.
0:36.6	Since 1989, Paul Wurstein has been
0:39.8	the co-editor of the Folger editions, along with Barbara Mowett. He's also a professor of English
0:45.1	at King's University College in London, Ontario. Suzanne Gossett is co-textual editor of the Norton
0:52.0	Shakespeare. She has also edited the Arden Shakespeare edition
0:56.0	of Pericles and is a past president of the Shakespeare Association of America. We call this
1:01.6	podcast the dedicated words which writers use. Suzanne and Paul are interviewed by Rebecca Shear.
1:08.5	Paul, let's start with you. My first question may appear to be self-evident, but I have to ask, if Shakespeare wrote
1:15.0	his plays 400 years ago, why do we need new additions?
1:20.2	What changes from addition to addition?
1:22.4	Well, I think Shakespeare editing has been a kind of a dual process of conservation and mediation so that what
1:33.0	editors have tried to do is preserve the texts. But at the same time, from the very beginning,
1:41.2	they've been mediating between the readership and the text. From the beginning, texts
1:49.2	get modernized, for example. The spelling gets modernized. And so you have that process of
1:56.2	modernization. You also have, in addition to the editing and the establishment of the text,
	...

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