Overview

This text is about Shakespeare, but also about writing and creativity, which has far-reaching implications for the reading, criticism and teaching of classic literature. Reviewing debates in textual theory and practice, Graham Holderness concludes that ""Shakespeare"" is not a writer but a collection of documents. According to modern literary studies all texts are copies, always already changed, and there are no ""originals"". Editors are translators; and scholars and critics rewrite the writing they study. Shakespeare is then situated within this theoretical context, via a brief history of the plays' textual reproduction. Holderness shows that modern Shakespeare editions are radical rewritings, and that contemporary textual theory opens the way to much more inventive textual activities of reconstruction and translation. This is demonstrated and explored in a series of chapters on and around individual Shakespeare plays. Holderness stresses throughout the creativity involved not only in the act of writing but in the many processes of rewriting that make up any historical culture. By way of illustration ""Textual Shakespeare"" includes a number of short ""creative"" works, mostly verse translations of Latin and Old English poems. The book draws on a wide range of sources, from classical poetry to deconstructionist theory, from Anglo-Saxon verse to modern bibliographical scholarship.

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9781902806204

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Forms a bold, imaginative, and remarkably wide-ranging contribution to thought about the origins and presentation of Shakespeare's text.

Author Information

Holderness is well-known in Shakespeare scholarship as one of the pioneers of cultural materialist criticism, as well as a significant contributor to historical, performance and textual studies. Now as Shakespeare criticism and scholarship are registering the impact of such theoretically-inspired work he characteristically goes further than other writers in pushing forward a new approach and a new agenda. He is author, co-author or editor of 31 books, 22 of which are on Shakespeare, and include Shakespeare's History (1985), The Shakespeare Myth (1988), Shakespeare: the Histories (2000) and the two volumes which this volume concludes, Cultural Shakespeare: essays in the Shakespeare myth (2001) and Visual Shakespeare: essays on film and television (2002). Holderness has also published original verse translations and a critical survey of Anglo-Saxon poetry, Anglo-Saxon Verse (Northcote House, 2000). His first novel, The Prince of Denmark, was published by the University of Hertfordshire Press last year. Graham Holderness is Professor of English, Dean of Humanities, Languages and Education, and Director of Research Policy at the University of Hertfordshire. He lives in London, England.

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