conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first five paragraphs for a book with the title 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'?
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conversations.value: A Midsummer Night's Dream
  Shakespeare endures through history. He illuminates later times as well as his own. He helps us to understand the human condition. But he cannot do this without a good text of the plays. Without editions there would be no Shakespeare. That is why every twenty years or so throughout the last three centuries there has been a major new edition of his complete works. One aspect of editing is the process of keeping the texts up to date—modernizing the spelling, punctuation, and typography (though not, of course, the actual words), providing explanatory notes in the light of changing educational practices (a generation ago, most of Shakespeare's classical and biblical allusions could be assumed to be generally understood, but now they can't).
  Generations of editors have adopted a "pick and mix" approach, moving between Quarto and Folio readings, making choices on either aesthetic or bibliographic grounds, sometimes creating a composite text that Shakespeare never actually wrote. Not until the 1980s did editors follow the logic of what ought to have been obvious to anyone who works in the theater: that the Quarto and Folio texts often represent discrete moments in the life of a script, that plays change in the course of rehearsal, production, and revival, and that many of the major variants between the early printed versions almost certainly reflect this process.
  The following notes highlight various aspects of the editorial process and indicate conventions used in the text of this edition:
  The second group of characters is introduced—the artisans who are to perform as part of the wedding entertainment. Their preparation and performance of the play-within-the-play creates comedy and a clear sense of theatrical self-awareness, as the limitations of their stagecraft highlight the sophistication of the wider play. The position of this scene between one involving the mortals and one involving the fairies perhaps emphasizes the role of the theater in the movement between reality and illusion.
  Quince allocates parts in "The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe," a humorous muddling of the genres of comedy and tragedy, but a reminder that there is often a fine line between the two. Comedy is created through Bottom's interruptions as he asks to be allowed to play all the parts and demonstrates how good he would be at each. Humor is also created through language—punning, bawdy, and Bottom's malapropisms. The practicalities and politics of staging are touched upon, as they discuss costumes, the fact that Flute does not wish to play a woman since he has "a beard coming," and how they must not incur the displeasure of their noble audience by frightening the ladies as "that were enough to hang us all." They agree to meet the next night in the wood to rehearse "by moonlight," so as to be private.
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conversations.value: This Bottom was gentler and more sympathetic, a true alternative to the chauvinism of Theseus and Oberon; consequently, he drew from Titania a warm and tender response, which, if it did not entirely eliminate the element of lustful sensuality, de-emphasised it considerably.
  At the end of the play, Hippolyta stepped into the fairy ring and—as Titania—sang the blessing with Oberon to the newlyweds, harmonizing the worlds of the play, and emphasizing the connection between reality and dreams.
  Theseus and Hippolyta become their subconscious selves, Oberon and Titania. They dream out their conflicts and marry happily. But Boyd takes the approach further... Athens itself sheds its superego and lets its id rampage, until Theseus, Hippolyta, lovers, mechanicals, everyone, are clattering together in a dance that Zorba himself would have found too anarchic.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: At the end of the play, Hippolyta stepped into the fairy ring and—as Titania—sang the blessing with Oberon to the newlyweds, harmonizing the worlds of the play, and emphasizing the connection between reality and dreams.
  Theseus and Hippolyta become their subconscious selves, Oberon and Titania. They dream out their conflicts and marry happily. But Boyd takes the approach further... Athens itself sheds its superego and lets its id rampage, until Theseus, Hippolyta, lovers, mechanicals, everyone, are clattering together in a dance that Zorba himself would have found too anarchic.
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  For questions about examination or desk copies, please visit the Random House Academic Resources site at'.
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conversations.value: The new king, James I, who had held the Scottish throne as James VI since he had been an infant, immediately took the Lord Chamberlain's Men under his direct patronage. Henceforth they would be the King's Men, and for the rest of Shakespeare's career they were favored with far more court performances than any of their rivals. There even seem to have been rumors early in the reign that Shakespeare and Burbage were being considered for knighthoods, an unprecedented honor for mere actors—and one that in the event was not accorded to a member of the profession for nearly three hundred years, when the title was bestowed upon Henry Irving, the leading Shakespearean actor of Queen Victoria's reign.
  For a more detailed Shakespeare bibliography and selections from a wide range of critical accounts of the play, with linking commentary, visit the edition website, www.therscshakespeare.com.
  Picture research by Helen Robson and Jan Sewell. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for assistance with picture research (special thanks to Helen Hargest) and reproduction fees.
  Images of RSC productions are supplied by the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive, Stratford-upon-Avon. This library, maintained by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, holds the most important collection of Shakespeare material in the UK, including the Royal Shakespeare Company's official archives. It is open to the public free of charge.
  For questions about examination or desk copies, please visit the Random House Academic Resources site at
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conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for this book?
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conversations.value: A Midsummer Night's Dream
  A modern edition of a Shakespeare play is the result of a great deal of scholarly research and editorial skill over several centuries. The aim is always to publish a text (based on the good and bad Quartos and the Folio editions) that most closely resembles what Shakespeare intended. Misprints have added to the problems, so some words and lines are pure guesswork. This explains why some versions of Shakespeare's plays differ from others.
  Performances were advertised by means of playbills posted around the city, and they took place during the hours of daylight when the weather was suitable. A flag flew to show that all was well, to save playgoers a wasted journey.
  At the entrance, a doorkeeper collected one penny (about 60 cents today) for admission to the "pit"—a name taken from the old inn-yards, where bear-baiting and cock-fighting were popular sports. This was the minimum charge for seeing a play. The "groundlings," as they were called, simply stood around the three sides of the stage, in the open air. Those who were better off could pay extra for a seat under cover. Stairs led from the pit to three tiers of galleries around the walls. The higher one went, the more one paid. The best seats cost one shilling (or $7 today). In theaters owned by speculators like Francis Langley and Philip Henslowe, half the gallery takings went to the landlord.
  A full house might consist of 800 groundlings and 1500 in the galleries, with a dozen more exclusive seats on the stage itself for the gentry. A new play might run for between six and sixteen performances; the average was about ten. As there were no breaks between scenes, and no intervals, most plays could be performed in two hours. A trumpet sounded three times before the play began.
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conversations.value: The acting company assembled in the Tiring House at the rear of the stage. This was where they attired (or dressed) themselves: not in costumes representing the period of the play, but in Elizabethan doublet and hose. All performances were therefore in modern dress, though no expense was spared to make the stage costumes lavish. The entire company was male. By law actresses were not allowed, and female roles were performed by boys.
  Access to the stage from the Tiring House was through two doors, one on each side of the stage. Because there was no front curtain, every entrance had to have its corresponding exit, so an actor killed on stage had to be carried off. There was no scenery: the audience used its imagination, guided by the spoken word. Storms and night scenes might well be performed on sunny days in mid-afternoon; the Elizabethan playgoer relied entirely on the playwright's descriptive skills to establish the dramatic atmosphere.
  The acting style in Elizabethan times was probably more declamatory than we favor today, but the close proximity of the audience also made a degree of intimacy possible. In those days soliloquies and asides seemed quite natural. Act and scene divisions did not exist (those in printed versions of the play today have been added by editors), but Shakespeare often indicates a scene ending by a rhyming couplet.
  Shakespeare wrote his plays mostly in blank verse: that is, unrhymed lines consisting of ten syllables, alternately stressed and unstressed. The technical term for this form is the iambic pentameter. When Shakespeare first began to write for the stage, it was fashionable to maintain this regular beat from the first line of the play till the last.
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conversations.value: Do you know the last three paragraphs?
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conversations.value: Bring out qualities which have led a critic to say that the conclusion of this monologue "is the finest thing in it."
  Read the original Shakespeare and (if necessary) the modern version to gain an understanding of the speeches and extracts below. Then concentrate entirely on the original in answering the questions.
  This is Oberon's account of how he came to possess the potent love juice which makes "or man or woman madly dote/Upon the next live creature that it sees." It is also an elaborate compliment to Elizabeth I, "the virgin queen." Examine the passage carefully and explain why she would be flattered by it (as many scholars believe) when it was first acted before her, probably on the occasion of a marriage between two of her noble subjects.
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conversations.value: A Midsummer Night's Dream
  There are substantive innovations in F like replacing Philostrate with Egeus in 5.1, and dividing between Theseus and Lysander the passage on the entertainments on offer (5.1.44–60). These are crucial to the case for a new theatrical manuscript behind F. At the level of detail, SPs and SDs in F are more numerous, elaborate and consistent (though not entirely so), and a minor actor, William Tawyer, is specifically named (see 5.1.125.3n.). As the first other mention of Tawyer (d.1625) dates from 1624, the manuscript consulted for F must have been in use long after the first performance. This is also indicated by a reference to intervals between the acts, perhaps with music (see 3.2.463 SDn.). Many stage actions are incorporated in SDs for the first time, most notably the lovers' sleeping on from 3.2 to 4.1. But Titania and Bottom, sleeping alongside them and indeed from the end of 3.1, find no mention – perhaps because they were hidden in the 'discovery space' through the long intermediate 3.2 (see 4.1.0.1n.).
  One might, of course, propose with Dover Wilson that the play was repeatedly revised. Wilson advanced a theory of threefold composition, based on the distribution of rhymed verse, blank verse and prose; the variation between 'Puck' and 'Robin' in SPs and SDs; and supposed topical references. No later scholar has endorsed this eventful history.20 The variant names in SPs and SDs, especially the oscillation between 'Robin' and 'Puck',21 are hard to relate to a cogent chronology of revision. Wilson even suggested (89) that the flower love-in-idleness was 'an afterthought on Shakespeare's part', replacing 'some other kind of charm'. If there was such radical revision, it is impossible to speculate what the original might have been like. Again, if the rhymed sections are survivals from the first phase, we can hardly imagine how the rest of the play looked in that version, or why those parts alone should be so drastically revised.
  Many changes between Q1 on the one hand, and Q2 and/or F on the other, seem intended to smooth out the metre or make for greater euphony.22 Others aim at more elegant, formal or up-to-date diction.23 Yet others simplify or distort the sense,24 and a few mistake prose for verse and 'regularize' metrically.25 The categories overlap, and a presumed 'improvement' to one end might impair another.26 Most of these revisions generically resemble those made by eighteenth-century or later editors. In the absence of other factors, slight irregularity of metre, grammar or diction should not be grounds for dismissing a (usually Q1) reading; it might sometimes be an argument in its favour, as stressing a point or drawing out a nuance.27 Supposed metrical irregularities might be regularized in delivery by prolonging or slurring a syllable, or introducing a median pause for dramatic effect. In songs or song-like passages, in particular, apparent irregularities can be and no doubt were absorbed in the tune: we need not change Q1 'thorough' to Q2, F 'through' in the fairy's 'song' (2.1.3, 5). Accepting such expressive irregularities in Q1 might also deter us from endorsing later emendations that iron them out. We may agree, for instance, that Q 'nature shewes arte' (2.2.108) might be preferred to F 'nature her[e] shewes art' or Malone's 'Nature shews her art'; that Pope need not have emended 'Ty vp my louers tongue' (3.1.192) to '... love's tongue', or Theobald inserted an arbitrary 'willing' into 5.1.91; that we might read 'Moons' (QF) and not 'moones' at 2.1.7, like Q1 'nights' rather than Q2, F 'the nights' at 4.1.95; and that 1.1.219 might be emended to end 'strange companies' rather than 'stranger companies'.
  The printing history of Q1 has some unusual features, although they never affect substantive readings.28 In a quarto, the sheet is folded twice, making a quire of four leaves or eight pages. Arguing from the recurrence of distributed type and the use of wrong founts (chiefly italic or small capitals for regular roman capitals), Turner ('Printing') concludes that Q1 was set by formes:29 that is, the 'forme' or four pages (not in sequence) on one side of a sheet was set before work on the other side was taken up. This involved casting off copy for the whole quire – i.e. estimating in advance the amount of text to fit on each page – and adjusting the text accordingly while printing. However, seriatim composition (following the sequence of the text) was attempted in part of quire C (Turner, 'Printing', 41). There are departures from usual practice elsewhere too. Turner also concludes that the outer forme (pages 1, 4, 5, 8) was printed before the inner (pages 2, 3, 6, 7), except in quire A.30 Following common practice, quire A was the last to be set; but as it contains part of the main text as well as the preliminaries (here only the title-page), casting off must have begun from the very first page of the text.
  The greatest deviation occurs in quire G. Sigs G1r–G2v contain 34 lines per page instead of the standard 35. On sig. G2r, two of these are blank lines before SDs.31 Together with the avoidance of a turnover in 4.2.4 (where only half a word spills over) this gives sig. G2r an open, widely spaced appearance. The compositor seems to have stretched out an inadequate amount of text in order to fill the page. But on sig. G3v of the same forme, he compresses into 35 lines what would normally have occupied 37, given two mid-line changes of speaker (in 5.1.76, 81). Sigs G2v–G3v contain the mislined passage (5.1.5–83) where virtually all editors accept Wilson's thesis of later insertions crammed into the margin of the manuscript copy. The mislining seems due primarily to unclear marginal copy: many instances do not affect the number of lines.32 But it may sometimes be owing to adjustments for incorrectly cast-off copy – for instance, by reducing 14 verses to 12 at 5.1.5–18 (sigs G2v–G3r). Why, even while compressing verses in this way, should the compositor have reduced the number of lines on sig. G2v, or even earlier on sig. G1r of this forme?
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conversations.value: Do you know three more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The issues illustrated from these two images, and the principles arising from them, indicate how there is no routine or mechanical way of editing a Shakespeare play. Matters apparently unrelated to the substantive text need close attention and considered revision if they are not to irk or mislead the modern reader at every stage.
  Biblical references are to the 1588 edition of the 'Bishops' Bible' (STC 2149), whose chapter and verse divisions agree broadly with those of most later versions including the King James.
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conversations.value: Add another sentence about Shakespeare, Arden, published, cited.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The issues illustrated from these two images, and the principles arising from them, indicate how there is no routine or mechanical way of editing a Shakespeare play. Matters apparently unrelated to the substantive text need close attention and considered revision if they are not to irk or mislead the modern reader at every stage. 
  Shakespeare plays not yet published in the third series of the Arden Shakespeare are cited from the second series. 
  Biblical references are to the 1588 edition of the 'Bishops' Bible' (STC 2149), whose chapter and verse divisions agree broadly with those of most later versions including the King James.
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conversations.value: Do you know the last three paragraphs?
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conversations.value: Wilson, John Dover here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, heren., here–here, here, here
  The General Editors of the Arden Shakespeare have been W.J. Craig and R.H. Case (first series 1899–1944) Una Ellis-Fermor, Harold F. Brooks, Harold Jenkins and Brian Morris (second series 1946–82)
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.