The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0269 Saturday, 11 July 2010 From: Hardy M. Cook <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> Date: Saturday, July 10, 2010 Subject: SBReview_7: The New Kittredge Shakespeare: Julius Caesar SBReview_7: _The New Kittredge Shakespeare: Julius Caesar_. Ed. Sarah Hatchuel. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2008. ISBN-10: 1585102601. ISBN-13: 978- 1585102600. 144 pp. US$8.95. Reviewed by Alisha Huber, Mary Baldwin College The New Kittredge Shakespeare series clearly began with a commendable idea: to make George Lyman Kittredge's editions of Shakespeare's plays available to a new generation of scholars. Kittredge's detailed and insightful footnotes and prefaces give the reader a window into two worlds -- Shakespeare's and Kittredge's. Kittredge's voice, in his notes, is strong and specific. When he glosses a masque as "a half-dramatic social entertainment," the reader hears, not only a definition of the word, but also Kittredge's own opinion of such entertainments (89). Reading Kittredge's introduction to _The Tragedy of Julius Caesar_, one can imagine what it must have been like to sit in one of his Harvard lectures. He begins by refuting the commonplace that the play would be more aptly titled "The Tragedy of Marcus Brutus." Kittredge argues that although Caesar dies at the midpoint of the play, his supernatural revenge makes him an ever-present figure, causing the conspirators to "turn our swords / In our own proper entrails." Caesar's pervasive presence makes the play a whole piece, rather than two disjointed stories yoked together. Kittredge follows this unified reading of the play by examining each character in turn. Here, his depth of knowledge is especially apparent. He explains Caesar's awkward tendency to refer to himself in the third person as Shakespeare's continuation of a long-standing stage tradition. He perfectly summarizes Cassius' mixed motives: "[His] passion does not burn with a clear flame, for his noble scorn of servitude is tainted with ignoble envy" (ix). Character readings like the ones Kittredge proposes would give an actor a good starting place in his own relationship with the character. Kittredge closes his introduction by arguing in favor of a challenging reading of _Julius Caesar_: Shakespeare does not take sides. "The verdict, if there must be a verdict, he leaves to history," giving all of the principal characters admiring eulogies (x). This reading is challenging because, although Kittredge's evidence clearly points to this conclusion, Caesar is an easier story to tell if it is about freedom fighters overthrowing a dictator, or a good leader viciously assassinated. Telling both stories -- and neither -- requires mental flexibility. Kittredge's introduction serves the commendable function of asking readers, before they even enter the world of the play, to work at holding both truths in their minds -- that Caesar was "the foremost man of all this world," and that Brutus was "the noblest Roman of them all." Kittredge bases his introduction firmly in the text. His writing is clear and purposeful. He carefully chooses points that will enhance the reader's experience. Shakespeare neophytes will get a gentle introduction to the issues the play raises, but seasoned scholars will find new information and new perspectives on the play. The second introduction in the edition, by editor Sarah Hatchuel, is less clear. Hatchuel puts forward a mix of literary criticism and performance history that would not prepare a lay reader to engage with the play. She seems to have designed some sections of the introduction, such as the performance history, for people who are unfamiliar with theater history more generally -- a high school English class, perhaps. Other sections, such as her analysis of the symbolism in Antony's funeral oration, make sense in the context of a discussion among serious scholars. The tenth graders who would find the stage history enlightening would giggle helplessly when they read, "It is as though Antony's voice and tongue were now fertilizing Caesar's wounded, feminized body" (xiii). The text itself is easy to follow, with clear speech headings and stage directions and no awkward hanging lines. The page layout system separating Kittredge's footnotes from Hatchuel's is difficult to follow at first. While Kittredge's footnotes provide glosses for words that have fallen out of usage, Hatchuel's describe film versions of the action. She accompanies these notes with stills from various films. As film is her particular academic interest, Hatchuel's focus on film adaptations is unsurprising. It might help readers who have limited access to staged performances of _Caesar_, which, unlike _Hamlet_ or _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, is not in heavy rotation. Most of the editorial stage directions are helpful, and the editors carefully bracket them. Generally, a reader can tell where Shakespeare leaves off and the editors fill in. One notable exception is the silent emendation in II.1.40, of Brutus' question, which appears in the Folio as "Is not to morrow (Boy) the first of March?" Kittredge, like many other editors, silently changes "first" to "ides." He also provides a note that I.3 "takes place on the night of March 14." This adjustment, which makes the play's chronology more sensible, is objectionable because of its silence. Had the editors pointed out this change, the reader could have decided for herself whether Shakespeare meant to have Brutus so distraught that he lost two weeks, or whether the compositor made an error in setting the scene. Following the text, the editors provide materials that would help students envision the play, including a short essay on "How to Read _Julius Caesar_ as Performance." At the end of an edition that largely focused on filmed adaptations of the play, this acknowledgement of the theater audience as a vital part of the performance was a welcome surprise. Hatchuel paints a gorgeous picture of how "the audience at the Globe theater [ . . . ] could become part of the Roman crowd, totally immersed in the dramatic events" (104). Her assertion that the actor and the spectator "both were united in the same communion of entertainment and imagination" was genuinely moving (104). In writing about the power of theater, Hatchuel should not have couched it in the past tense. Actors and spectators continue to create theater because of that communion, and not just in "original practices" spaces. Hatchuel's homage to the theater is backhanded at best -- it was beautiful; too bad it is over. The remainder of the end material -- a timeline of Shakespeare's life, a solid bibliography, and a collection of discussion questions on the play -- would be useful to a teacher in a high school or undergraduate classroom, but probably not of interest to a graduate student or serious scholar. This confusion of audience is the most pervasively unsatisfying element of the New Kittredge Shakespeare. Preserving Kittredge's distinctive voice is a worthy exercise for the scholarly community. Reprinting his editions directly, without all of the additional material (or with material more clearly directed to an audience of specialists) would have fulfilled this audience's needs quite well. A classroom- oriented edition is also a creditable project. Many of the materials provided would be useful to a classroom teacher. However, undergraduate or high school students might find Kittredge's original material mystifying. Some of his footnotes, literally, have footnotes. A student audience would have an easier time with an edition that was not also attempting to preserve the scholarship of the previous century. Actors and directors would benefit from an edition with less cluttered pages. The New Kittredge Shakespeare is a well-intentioned project, but it stumbles in trying to be all things to all people. _______________________________________________________________ S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net> DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the editor assumes no responsibility for them.
