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The Cambridge Shakespeare
''The Cambridge Shakespeare'' is a long-running series of critical editions of William Shakespeare's works published by Cambridge University Press. The name encompasses three distinct series: ''The Cambridge Shakespeare'' (1863–1866), ''The New Shakespeare'' (1921–1969), and ''The New Cambridge Shakespeare'' (1984–present). ''The Cambridge Shakespeare'' (1863–1866) ''The Cambridge Shakespeare'' was edited by William George Clark, William Aldis Wright, and John Glover. It was released in nine volumes between 1863 and 1866. Clark and Wright used the ''First Folio'' (1623) as their base text and collated it with the second, third, and fourth folios as well as all the known quarto editions. The edition modernized the orthography to 19th-century standards rather than preserve the variable Elizabethan era, Elizabethan spelling, but generally left the grammar and metre unchanged. In the edition, each page of a play contains a critical apparatus at the end. Where the folio text ...
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Critical Editions
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in dates from the earliest writing in cuneiform, impressed on clay, for example, to multiple unpublished versions of a 21st-century author's work. Historically, scribes who were paid to copy documents may have been literate, but many were simply copyists, mimicking the shapes of letters without necessarily understanding what they meant. This means that unintentional alterations were common when copying manuscripts by hand. Intentional alterations may have been made as well, for example, the censoring of printed work for political, religious or cultural reasons. The objective of the textual critic's work is to provide a better understanding of the creation and historical transmission of the text and its variants. This understanding may lead to t ...
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The Taming Of A Shrew
''The Taming of the Shrew'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself. The nobleman then has the play performed for Sly's diversion. The main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherina, the headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially, Katherina is an unwilling participant in the relationship; however, Petruchio "tames" her with various psychological and physical torments, such as keeping her from eating and drinking, until she becomes a desirable, compliant, and obedient bride. The subplot features a competition between the suitors of Katherina's younger sister, Bianca, who is seen as the "ideal" woman. The question of whether the play is misogynistic has become the subject of considerable controversy, particularly among mode ...
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Romeo And Juliet
''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with ''Hamlet'', is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the Title character, title characters are regarded as archetype, archetypal young lovers. ''Romeo and Juliet'' belongs to a tradition of tragic Romance (love), romances stretching back to Ancient history, antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as ''The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet'' by Arthur Brooke (poet), Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in ''Palace of Pleasure'' by William Painter (author), William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Count Paris, Paris. Believed to have been written between ...
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Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cyprus, a possession of the Venetian Republic since 1489. The port city of Famagusta finally fell to the Ottomans in 1571 after a protracted siege. The story revolves around two characters, Othello and Iago. Othello is a Moorish military commander who was serving as a general of the Venetian army in defence of Cyprus against invasion by Ottoman Turks. He has recently married Desdemona, a beautiful and wealthy Venetian lady much younger than himself, against the wishes of her father. Iago is Othello's malevolent ensign, who maliciously stokes his master's jealousy until the usually stoic Moor kills his beloved wife in a fit of blind rage. Due to its enduring themes of passion, jealousy, and race, ''Othello'' is still topical and popular and is ...
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Richard III (play)
''Richard III'' is a play by William Shakespeare. It was probably written c. 1592–1594. It is labelled a history in the First Folio, and is usually considered one, but it is sometimes called a tragedy, as in the quarto edition. ''Richard III'' concludes Shakespeare's first tetralogy (also containing ''Henry VI, Part 1'', ''Henry VI, Part 2'', and ''Henry VI, Part 3'') and depicts the Machiavellian rise to power and subsequent short reign of King Richard III of England. It is the second longest play in the Shakespearean canon and is the longest of the First Folio, whose version of ''Hamlet'', otherwise the longest, is shorter than its quarto counterpart. The play is often abridged for brevity, and peripheral characters removed. In such cases, extra lines are often invented or added from elsewhere to establish the nature of the characters' relationships. A further reason for abridgment is that Shakespeare assumed his audiences' familiarity with his ''Henry VI'' plays, frequentl ...
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King Lear
''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane and a proscribed crux of political machinations. The first known performance of any version of Shakespeare's play was on Saint Stephen's Day in 1606. The three extant publications from which modern editors derive their texts are the 1608 quarto (Q1) and the 1619 quarto (Q2, unofficial and based on Q1) and the 1623 First Folio. The quarto versions differ significantly from the folio version. The play was often revised after the English Restoration for audiences who disliked its dark and depressing tone, but since the 19th century Shakespeare's original play has been regarded as one of his supreme achievements. Both the title role and the supporting roles have been coveted by accomplished actors, and the play has been widely adapted. In his ' ...
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Henry V (play)
''Henry V'' is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written near 1599. It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. In the First Quarto text, it was titled ''The Cronicle History of Henry the fift'', and ''The Life of Henry the Fifth'' in the First Folio text. The play is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded by '' Richard II'', ''Henry IV, Part 1'', and '' Henry IV, Part 2''. The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in the ''Henry IV'' plays as a wild, undisciplined young man. In ''Henry V'', the young prince has matured. He embarks on an expedition to France and, his army badly outnumbered, defeats the French at Agincourt. Characters * Chorus The English * King Henry V * Duke of Gloucester – Henry's brother * Duke of Bedford – Henry's brother * Duke of Clarence – He ...
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Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts Prince Hamlet and his attempts to exact revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet's mother. ''Hamlet'' is considered among the "most powerful and influential tragedies in the English language", with a story capable of "seemingly endless retelling and adaptation by others". There are many works that have been pointed to as possible sources for Shakespeare's play—from ancient Greek tragedies to Elizabethan plays. The editors of the Arden Shakespeare question the idea of "source hunting", pointing out that it presupposes that authors always require ideas from other works for their own, and suggests that no author can have an original idea or be an originator. When ...
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Quarto
Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produce eight book pages. Each printed page presents as one-fourth size of the full sheet. The earliest known European printed book is a quarto, the '' Sibyllenbuch'', believed to have been printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1452–53, before the Gutenberg Bible, surviving only as a fragment. Quarto is also used as a general description of size of books that are about 12 inches (30 cm) tall, and as such does not necessarily indicate the actual printing format of the books, which may even be unknown as is the case for many modern books. These terms are discussed in greater detail in book sizes. Quarto as format A quarto (from Latin , ablative form of , fourth) is a book or pamphlet made up of one or more full sheets of paper on which 8 pages of t ...
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Collaborative Authorship
Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story. Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally – many collaboratively written works have been the subject of a large degree of academic research. Process A collaborative author may focus on a specific protagonist or character in the narrative thread, and then pass the story to another writer for further additions or a change in focus to a different protagonist. Alternatively, authors might write the text for their own particular subplot within an overall narrative, in which case one author may have the responsibility of integrating the story as a whole. In Italy, various groups of authors have developed more advanced methods of interaction and production The methods used by commercial collaborative writers vary tremendously. When beginning writing the short story 'the toy mill' Karl Schroeder and David Nickle began by writing ...
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Pericles, Prince Of Tyre
''Pericles, Prince of Tyre'' is a Jacobean play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and included in modern editions of his collected works despite questions over its authorship, as it was not included in the First Folio. It was published in 1609 as a quarto, was not included in Shakespeare's collections of works until the third folio, and the main inspiration for the play was Gower's ''Confessio Amantis''. Various arguments support the theory that Shakespeare was the sole author of the play, notably in DelVecchio and Hammond's Cambridge edition of the play, but modern editors generally agree that Shakespeare was responsible for almost exactly half the play — 827 lines — the main portion after scene 9 that follows the story of Pericles and Marina. Modern textual studies suggest that the first two acts, 835 lines detailing the many voyages of Pericles, were written by a collaborator, who may well have been the victualler, panderer, dramatist and pamphleteer Geo ...
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