Unediting The Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe And Milton

Unediting The Renaissance: Shakespeare, Marlowe And Milton

Unediting the Renaissance is a path-breaking and timely look at the issues of the textual editing of Renaissance works. Both erudite and accessible, it will be a fascinating and provocative read for any Renaissance student or scholar. Leah Marcus argues that `bad' versions of Renaissance texts such as Shakespeare's First Folio should not be viewed as mutilated copies of originals, but rather reputable alternatives encoding differences in ideology, cultural meaning and other elements of performance. Marcus focuses on key Renaissance works- Dr Faustus, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet and poems by Milton, Donne and Herrick - to re-exmaine how editorial intervention shapes the texts which are widely accepted as `definitive'. Examining the cultural attitudes, fears and influences which influence textual editors, from the seveteenth century to the present day, Marcus sheds new light on a previously unexamined aspect of Renaissance studies. A lively critique of current theoretical practices, Unediting the Renaissance will shift the ways in which Shakespeare and his contemporaries are edited and read. Review Unediting the Renaissance includes both good arguments and provocative hypotheses in its efforts to explore the materiality of early modern texts. ?Renaissance and Reformation [Marcus] presents cogent and compelling discussions of individual works to support her arguments, and those discussions are often new and exciting. Within each chapter there is much to engage readers... even longtime students... will appreciate the strikingly original elements in her discussions... That Unediting the Renaissance provokes questions attests to its scope and its importance... it is [an] inspiring work for textual critics, largely because it can convey the excitement of textual research to a broader audience. ?Text About the Author Leah Marcus is Blumberg Centennial Professor of English at the Univeristy of Texas, Austin, and author of The Politics of Mirth (1986), and Puzzling Shakespeare (1988).