Textual Shakespeare - Graham Holderness

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.