The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.2232  Thursday, 16 December 1999.

[1]     From:   Mac Jackson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 16 Dec 1999 11:50:39 +1200
        Subj:   Suspect Quartos

[2]     From:   Steve Urkowitz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 15 Dec 1999 22:24:12 EST
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.2221 Re: Quartos and Folios & Maguire's Book

[3]     From:   John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 16 Dec 1999 08:30:33 -0000
        Subj:   RE: SHK 10.2221 Re: Quartos and Folios


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mac Jackson <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 16 Dec 1999 11:50:39 +1200
Subject:        Suspect Quartos

I agree with Pervez Rizvi's comments on Laurie Maguire's interesting
book. My own brief review in Modern Language Review, 93 (1988), 184-5,
made - or at least touched on - much the same point.

Mac Jackson

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Steve Urkowitz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 15 Dec 1999 22:24:12 EST
Subject: 10.2221 Re: Quartos and Folios and Maguire's Book
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.2221 Re: Quartos and Folios and Maguire's Book

I agree with Pervez Rizvi about Laurie Maguire's book on the "suspect"
quartos.  Working through it for a review in U of Toronto Quarterly, I
also was delighted by her careful tracking of the batty argumentation
that was first offered as tentative speculation and then defended for
decades with little justification other than loyalty to fellows in the
club.

In her own analysis of the texts, however, often she is as speculative
as Greg and his buddies.

For anyone interested in those plays with alternative versions, I
continue to suggest that for any passages you are interested in, you
simply look at all early versions available along with modern editions.
Many times you'll find few distinctions can be observed, but sometimes
the alternatives will jump out as lively and purposeful.

Your own ideosyncratic critical tools will allow you to decide if the
alternative versions are useful for your purposes.

The lessons of the last quarter century teach us that the textual
scholars and editors  just don't hold any monopoly over those early
documents.  Actors, students and non-specialist scholars find valuable
experience juggling those texts.  Alas, a few generations of editors
suppressed their interest for readers.

Joys of reading bifocally,
Steve Urquartowitz

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           John Briggs <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 16 Dec 1999 08:30:33 -0000
Subject: 10.2221 Re: Quartos and Folios
Comment:        RE: SHK 10.2221 Re: Quartos and Folios

I haven't yet read Maguire's book, so I am talking from a position of
more than usual ignorance, but here goes:

I think it is probably a case of Occam's Razor: is memorial
reconstruction (MR) a necessary hypothesis?  Maguire is probably
attacking the whole concept of MR.  For MR to be a legitimate hypothesis
we need one (just one!) unmistakable instance of it ever having happened
(to construct a play text I mean: it nearly always happens in
performance ...).  If this can be demonstrated in one case, then MR
becomes available as a possible (although not necessarily probable)
hypothesis in other cases.  If, however, every single instance can be
explained (away) by other, legitimate, hypotheses then MR acquires the
status of the Emperor's New Clothes.  Those other hypotheses need to be
established as legitimate, of course, ...

John Briggs

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