A USER’S GUIDE TO THE COMPLETE WORKS

Readers of this edition may find it helpful to have a note of some of its more distinctive features. Fuller discussion is to be found in the General Introduction, and in the Textual Companion (1987).

Contents

This volume includes all the writings believed by the editors to have been written, wholly or in part, by Shakespeare. Like all other editions, it also prints a few poems of uncertain authorship (see Various Poems, pp. 805-811). Information about reasons for inclusion and exclusion can be found in the Textual Companion, ‘The Canon and Chronology of Shakespeare’s Plays’, pp. 69-144).

Introductions

Each work is preceded by a brief introduction summarizing essential background information.

Order

The works are printed in conjectured order of composition as determined by the editors. The simplest way to find any given work is to refer to the Alphabetical List of Contents (pp. xi-xii). (Short poems are listed under the general title of ‘Various Poems’.)

The Words

Every new edition of Shakespeare differs to some extent from its predecessors. Because this edition represents a radical rethinking of the text, it departs from tradition more than most. New emendations of disputed readings have been introduced. At times we restore original readings that have traditionally been emended. Spelling and punctuation have been thoroughly reconsidered (see General Introduction, pp. xv-xlii). Our most radical departures from tradition relate to the plays that survive in more than one early text. In the belief that these texts are more likely to reflect unrevised and revised versions, rather than differently corrupted versions of a lost original (as has generally been supposed), we have abandoned the tradition of conflation. Passages surviving only in a text that we have not selected as our base text are printed not in the body of the play but as Additional Passages (as, for example, at the end of Hamlet). Most drastically, we present separately edited texts of both authoritative early editions of King Lear, using the titles under which they first appeared (The History of King Lear for the quarto text of 1608, and The Tragedy of King Lear for the Folio text). The only text in the volume printed from manuscript, Sir Thomas More, calls for individual treatment, which is discussed in the introduction to the play.

Stage Directions

Stage directions are based on those of the early editions, where they vary in amplitude and in style. They have been amended where necessary in order to signal requisite action. Changes are not automatically signalled. Special brackets (⌈ ⌉) indicate that the action signalled, its placing, or the identity of the speaker, is, in the editor’s opinion, open to question.

Act and Scene Divisions

None of Shakespeare’s plays printed in his lifetime is divided into acts and scenes, and the scattered divisions in the Folio have no certain claim to authenticity. Up to about 1609, plays appear to have been given with no act breaks. For convenience of reference we follow the standard practice of dividing the plays into five acts and the acts into scenes, on the principle that a new scene begins after the stage is cleared. We have rethought the traditional divisions, resulting in a few divergences from the norm.

In plays such as The Tempest, where the practice, dating from around 1609, of observing act breaks was followed, the break is signalled by a Tudor rose (

).

For reasons explained elsewhere, Pericles, Edward III, Sir Thomas More, and The History of King Lear (based on the 1608 quarto) are divided only into scenes.

Titles

Titles have been rethought, so that for example the play printed in the Folio as The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth, and traditionally known as Henry VIII, is here given the title of All Is True, under which it was first acted. The Alphabetical List of Contents (pp. xi-xii) lists plays under traditional as well as rethought form.

THE LANGUAGE OF SHAKESPEARE

by DAVID CRYSTAL

ANY encounter with Shakespeare, on page or on stage, presents us with two related linguistic challenges:

• a semantic challenge: we have to work out what his language means, if we are to follow the plots, understand the descriptions of people and places, and take in what he (in the poems) or his characters (in the plays) are saying and thinking,

• a pragmatic challenge: we have to appreciate the effects that his choice of language conveys, if we are to explain the style in which he or his characters talk, see why other characters react in the way they do, and understand what is happening to our intellect and emotions as we read, watch, or listen to their exchanges.

Most of the time we respond to these challenges with unselfconscious ease, because the language of Shakespeare is the same, or only minimally different, from the language we use today. We need no explanatory linguistic notes, or specialist dictionaries or grammars, to understand the semantics of such lines as:

SIR JOHN Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

(I Henry IV, 1.2.1)

ORSINO

If music be the food of love, play on.

(Twelfth Night, 1.1.1)

HAMLET

To be, or not to be; that is the question.

(Hamlet, 3.1.58)

The thought may be demanding upon occasion; but the language is no barrier.

Nor do we need a corresponding scholarly apparatus to appreciate the pragmatic force underlying such lines as:

PRINCE HARRY [of Sir John] That villainous, abominable misleader of youth

(I Henry IV, 2.5.467)

MARINA

My name, sir, is Marina.

(Pericles, 21.131)

SHYLOCK [of a jewel] ... I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor.

(Merchant of Venice, 3.1.113)

If we refer to the context in which these lines occur, we find that they are, in turn, a jocular insult, a moment of revelation, and a nostalgic reflection; but we do not need to look up editorial notes to decide whether to laugh, cry, or sympathize as we take in what is said.

At the other extreme, there is Shakespearian language which is so far removed from our modern linguistic intuitions that without specialist help we are at a loss to know what to make of it, semantically or pragmatically. We have problems understanding what it means, or how we should react to it, or why it makes characters behave in the way they do: