On texts
It probably isn't Shakespeare.
Certainly not as he wrote it.
Same play, but they are all different.
You can compare them here.
Different quarto versions exist for 17 of the plays.
The rest only exist in the folio versions and none (except Thomas More) are in Shakespeare's hand.
Before any play by any writer(s) was printed, it went through the following stages:
1. It's written, by hand using a quill and corrected as it's being written (see 'Thomas More' above). There is one copy.
2. It's delivered, with all the crossings out and corrections and sometimes in installments, to the company and you'd better hope that the handwriting is legible. Jonson's is a beautiful Italianate script. Shakespeare's Secretary Hand is rather more challenging to a modern eye. Co-authored scripts would come separately and in different hands. (Several of Shakespeare's plays are co-authored.)
3. A 'fair' copy' is made from the 'foul papers' by a scribe. This will also be used as the prompt copy and to construct the plot.
4. Each part, with the relevant cues, is copied out to be handed out to the actors.
5. The actors learn their parts, often mis-learning or changing lines, and a new version is often written to include changes made in performance.
6. Once the play has run its course and is likely to make no more money for the company, the play may be offered for publication in a quarto version - which would have been sold cheaply to the public. The printer bought the play outright. There were no royalties or copyright law.
7. Compositing is a slow, laborious process which hardly changed till the 1986 and the advent of computers/word processors. Every word, line and punctuation mark was mounted by hand into a frame using metal die-cast letters which lived in upper and lower cases from which the printers selected the what they needed. There is no artificial light and many printers weren't well educated. There is infinite scope for error.
As a bit of trivia, even in the age of the computer errors occur. A few years ago I directed 'Return to the Forbidden Planet' and my Samuel French script had a number of printing errors.
Then, of course, the text you have in front of your class has been through a number of editors over a number of years having been influenced by a number of other editors with their own, informed but not necessarily agreed, interpretations of the 'best' version.
The moral of the story? You almost certainly aren't reading Shakespeare! 😋
If you'd like to learn more about the process of getting the plays onto the modern stage/into the school text book, I recommend Shakespeare: Texts and Contexts
Certainly not as he wrote it.
 |
| Q1 - 1597 |
 |
| Q2 - 1599 |
 |
| Q3 - 1609 |
You can compare them here.
Different quarto versions exist for 17 of the plays.
The rest only exist in the folio versions and none (except Thomas More) are in Shakespeare's hand.
Before any play by any writer(s) was printed, it went through the following stages:
1. It's written, by hand using a quill and corrected as it's being written (see 'Thomas More' above). There is one copy.
2. It's delivered, with all the crossings out and corrections and sometimes in installments, to the company and you'd better hope that the handwriting is legible. Jonson's is a beautiful Italianate script. Shakespeare's Secretary Hand is rather more challenging to a modern eye. Co-authored scripts would come separately and in different hands. (Several of Shakespeare's plays are co-authored.)
3. A 'fair' copy' is made from the 'foul papers' by a scribe. This will also be used as the prompt copy and to construct the plot.
4. Each part, with the relevant cues, is copied out to be handed out to the actors.
5. The actors learn their parts, often mis-learning or changing lines, and a new version is often written to include changes made in performance.
6. Once the play has run its course and is likely to make no more money for the company, the play may be offered for publication in a quarto version - which would have been sold cheaply to the public. The printer bought the play outright. There were no royalties or copyright law.
7. Compositing is a slow, laborious process which hardly changed till the 1986 and the advent of computers/word processors. Every word, line and punctuation mark was mounted by hand into a frame using metal die-cast letters which lived in upper and lower cases from which the printers selected the what they needed. There is no artificial light and many printers weren't well educated. There is infinite scope for error.
As a bit of trivia, even in the age of the computer errors occur. A few years ago I directed 'Return to the Forbidden Planet' and my Samuel French script had a number of printing errors.
Then, of course, the text you have in front of your class has been through a number of editors over a number of years having been influenced by a number of other editors with their own, informed but not necessarily agreed, interpretations of the 'best' version.
The moral of the story? You almost certainly aren't reading Shakespeare! 😋
If you'd like to learn more about the process of getting the plays onto the modern stage/into the school text book, I recommend Shakespeare: Texts and Contexts
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