Hamlet in Three Versions

John Jowett is Professor of Shakespeare Studies, and Deputy Director of The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. His teaching and research focuses mainly on Shakespeare and early modern drama, with particular reference to editing and all areas of textual study.

John is General Editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare, which will eventuate in a completely new print and electronic edition of Shakespeare's Complete Works. This will be a major multiplatform edition of Shakespeare in both original and moder spelling formats, freshly edited by a small, cohesive international team of scholars.

It’s now usual to think of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a play existing in three distinct and strikingly different versions.  What we really mean by this can be tested out only by reading the texts comparatively and thinking critically about the differences between them.  The class will therefore focus on some close reading of a single passage as it is printed in the texts published in 1603, 1604-5, and 1623.  We will consider the differences between them in relation to intrinsic or authorial variation, and in relation to error.  The class offers an introduction to some of the theoretical and practical issue that surround version-based editing, or for that matter version-based reading.  It will consider what, in a version-oriented textual world, we mean when we invoke an author such as ‘Shakespeare’.

Copies of the passage to be discussed will be circulated in advance to those intending to participate in the class.

To book a place on the workshop please contact Jacky Pankhurst jacky.pankhurst@york.ac.uk