The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 29.0319 Wednesday, 12 September 2018
From: Jean-Christophe Mayer <
Date: September 11, 2018 at 1:37:56 PM EDT
Subject: Book Announcement: Shakespeare's Early Readers A Cultural History from 1590 to 1800
Book Announcement:
Jean-Christophe Mayer, Shakespeare’s Early Readers A Cultural History from 1590 to 1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, xv + 259 p. ISBN 9781107138339.
Abstract:
Who were Shakespeare’s first readers and what did they think of his works? Offering the first dedicated account of the ways in which Shakespeare’s texts were read in the centuries during which they were originally produced, Jean-Christophe Mayer reconsiders the role of readers in the history of Shakespeare’s rise to fame and in the history of canon formation. Addressing an essential formative ‘moment’ when Shakespeare became a literary dramatist, this book explores six crucial fields: literacy; reading and life-writing; editing Shakespeare’s text; marking Shakespeare for the theatre; commonplacing; and passing judgement. Through close examination of rare material, some of which has never been published before, and covering both the marks left by readers in their books and early manuscript extracts of Shakespeare, Mayer demonstrates how the worlds of print and performance overlapped at a time when Shakespeare offered a communal text, the ownership of which was essentially undecided.
- The first dedicated study of the reading reception of Shakespeare's texts in the two centuries after they were produced
- Explores rare, often previously unpublished, material to reconsider the role of readers in the history of Shakespeare's rise to fame and in the history of canon formation
- Presents thirty images, allowing readers to see for themselves the engagements made by readers of Shakespeare's texts
Publisher information:
Shakespeare's Early Readers
A Cultural History from 1590 to 1800
- • AUTHOR: Jean-Christophe Mayer, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier
- • DATE PUBLISHED: September 2018
- • AVAILABILITY: In stock
- • FORMAT: Hardback
- • ISBN: 9781107138339