The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3437]
Nicholas Rowe, 1674-1718.
Nicholas Rowe, a popular dramatist of Queen Anne’s reign, and poet laureate to George I., was the first critical editor of Shakespeare. He produced an edition of his plays in six octavo volumes in 1709. A new edition in eight volumes followed in 1714, and another hand added a ninth volume which included the poems. Rowe prefixed a valuable life of the poet embodying traditions which were in danger of perishing without a record. His text followed that of the Fourth Folio. The plays were printed in the same order, except that he transferred the spurious pieces from the beginning to the end. Rowe did not compare his text with that of the First Folio or of the quartos, but in the case of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ he met with an early quarto while his edition was passing through the press, and inserted at the end of the play the prologue which is met with only in the quartos. He made a few happy emendations, some of which coincide accidentally with the readings of the First Folio; but his text is deformed by many palpable errors. His practical experience as a playwright induced him, however, to prefix for the first time a list of dramatis personæ to each play, to divide and number acts and scenes on rational principles, and to mark the entrances and exits of the characters. Spelling, punctuation, and grammar he corrected and modernised.
Alexander Pope, 1688-1744.
The poet Pope was Shakespeare’s second editor. His edition in six quarto volumes was completed in 1725. The poems, edited by Dr. George Sewell, with an essay on the rise and progress of the stage, and a glossary, appeared in a seventh volume. Pope had few qualifications for the task, and the venture was a commercial failure. In his preface Pope, while he fully recognised Shakespeare’s native genius, deemed his achievement deficient in artistic quality. Pope claimed to have collated the text of the Fourth Folio with that of all preceding editions, and although his work indicates that he had access to the First Folio and some of the quartos, it is clear that his text was based on that of Rowe. His innovations are numerous, and are derived from ‘his private sense and conjecture,’ but they are often plausible and ingenious. He was the first to indicate the place of each new scene, and he improved on Rowe’s subdivision of the scenes. A second edition of Pope’s version in ten duodecimo volumes appeared in 1728 with Sewell’s name on the title-page as well as Pope’s. There were few alterations in the text, though a preliminary table supplied a list of twenty-eight quartos. Other editions followed in 1735 and 1768. The last was printed at Garrick’s suggestion at Birmingham from Baskerville’s types.
Lewis Theobald, 1688-1744.
Pope found a rigorous critic in Lewis Theobald, who, although contemptible as a writer of original verse and prose, proved himself the most inspired of all the textual critics of Shakespeare. Pope savagely avenged himself on his censor by holding him up to ridicule as the hero of the ‘Dunciad.’ Theobald first displayed his critical skill in 1726 in a volume which deserves to rank as a classic in English literature. The title runs ‘Shakespeare Restored, or a specimen of the many errors as well committed as unamended by Mr. Pope in his late edition of this poet, designed not only to correct the said edition but to restore the true reading of Shakespeare in all the editions ever yet publish’d.’ There at page 137 appears Theobald’s great emendation in Shakespeare’s account of Falstaff’s death (Henry V, II. iii. 17): ‘His nose was as sharp as a pen and a’ babbled of green fields,’ in place of the reading in the old copies, ‘His nose was as sharp as a pen and a table of green fields.’ In 1733 Theobald brought out his edition of Shakespeare in seven volumes. In 1740 it reached a second issue.