A Certain Text: Close Readings and Textual Studies on Shakespeare and Others in Honor of Thomas Clayton

by Anderson, Linda; Lull, Janis; Clayton, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780874137897
• ISBN10: 0874137896
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-01
• Publisher: Associated Univ Pr

Summary

This collection in honor of Thomas Clayton takes its title from Romeo and Juliet (4.1.21). Meeting Paris in Friar Lawrence's cell, Juliet muses, "What must be shall be, " and the Friar completes her line with, "That's a certain text." Where "text" means a received truth, both Friar Lawrence and Clayton are interested skeptics. The essays gathered here reflect this attitude, questioning received ideas about the activities to which Clayton has devoted his professional life -- literary editing and the close reading of literary works. Essays on literary editing include Richard Proudfoot's on the early printing history of Mucedorus, David Haley's on "the most famous crux in Shakespeare, " and Janis Lull's on the "End of Editing Shakespeare, " Linda Anderson, Stephen Booth, Jay Halio, and Joyce Sutphen offer close readings of the Merry Wives of Windsor, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, and The Sonnets, respectively. Achsah Guibbory writes about Robert Herrick and the Hebrew Bible, and Daniel Hooley treats Ben Jonson's classicism. Anatoly Liberman reexamines Germanic

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	7	(4)
Introduction	11	(7)
``Modernizing'' the Printed Play-Text in Jacobean London: Some Early Reprints of Mucedorus	18	(11)
Richard Proudfoot
``The Cause of This Defect'': The Dram of Eale	29	(21)
David Haley
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blooper: Some Notes on the Endless Editing of Richard III	50	(15)
Janis Lull
``Who's in, who's out'': Stage Directions and Stage Presences in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Q1	65	(10)
Linda Anderson
The Physics of Hamlet's ``Rogue and Peasant Slave'' Speech	75	(19)
Stephen Booth
The Induction as Clue in The Taming of the Shrew	94	(13)
Jay L. Halio
``Of comfort and despair'': A Shakespearean Compass	107	(15)
Joyce Sutphen
Hesperides, the Hebrew Bible, and Herrick's Christian entity	122	(28)
Ashsah Guibbory
``But above all he excelleth in a Translation'': Ben Johnson's Horace	150	(23)
D. M. Hooley
A Cobweb of Dwarves and Dweebs (An Exercise in Very Close Reading and Germanic Etymology)	173	(20)
Anatoly Liberman
Contributors	193	(2)
Appendix: Tom Clayton: A Checklist	195	(5)
Index	200