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• 6/19/2009 6:21 PM Donna wrote:
  yeah, one play a month is GOOD. Not everyone is a Shakespeare savant like you!!!!!
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• 6/19/2009 8:26 PM Chris M wrote:
  I've got to agree; a play a month may seem slow, but with time unfortunately at a premium, it's probably best to be extra generous in that regard.
  
  Also, shouldn't you double-star Othello? I know my mind, like wine, is turning to vinegar in my rapidly advancing years, but I still do distinctly remember you claiming Iago more than once when we read it aloud in class oh so long ago.
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  1. 6/19/2009 11:01 PM bill-w wrote:
     Damn, you're right... this is why I need younger brains that mine as collaborators!  My mind can launch bottles by adding just a little baking soda... sigh
     
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• 10/7/2009 8:55 AM Lisa Otero wrote:
  Hi Bill. I am not using the edition you are using. I am using, "William Shakespeare, the Complete Works, The Edition of the Shakepeare Head Press, Oxford." (MetroBooks 1994). Are there large variations in the editions? Is Penguin considered definitive?
  
  My edition lists the plays in a slightly different chronological order than you (Penguin?) do. At some point, will you discuss academic debate over the chronology? Also, did Will really write H6, parts 2 and 3 prior to part 1? Were they initially perfored separately?
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  1. 10/7/2009 7:18 PM bill-w wrote:
     Penguin, definitive> ... naw... it's just that the Romeo and Juliet I marked up in preparation for Kyle's class was a Penguin, and I wanted a matching set... (and they was CHEAP, I tell ya, in these tough economic times).
     
     
     As for variation, every editor does a little bit of individual clean-up on the text, some more than others, some taking a little more from the folio than the quarto edition (and others vice versa).  If you have variations in any of the stuff I cite, I'd love to hear about it... ESPECIALLY if it changes the text (or possible performance/interpretation) in any meaningful way.
     
     
     The order I used was an amalgam of a couple of concepts: 
     
     
     1) a quick and dirty review of many critics opinion on order (and you're absolutely right, there are some pretty interesting divergences in opinion... heck, remember, I'm not even doing the "Fletcher" plays of The Two Noble Kinsmen and Henry VIII [but in retrospect, I think that may have been more for "round-number" purposes... my selection of 36 gets us done in a nice, round three years... but when June 2012 rolls around, I might just revisit that decision]
     
     
     and 
     
     
     2) my desire to put the histories in chronological order in terms of history rather than authorship (which bumps The Merry Wives of Windsor to after Henry V, though it was written before).
     
     
     At some point, I am going to discuss the academic debate over order, especially as it pertains to The First Part of Henry the Sixth, which most critics agree was written--or rather RE-written (ooooh, foreshadowing!)--after the Second and Third Parts...  
     
     
     And, as always, when I get there, please chime in with whatever nuggets of historical gold you may have!
     
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