Voice-over:
Stratford-upon-Avon was just another market town nestling in mid-England until this man started writing his 38 plays which well over 300 years since his death are still the world’s literary benchmark. Today the town buzzes on a sunny day with tourists all over the world and whatever other attractions there may be, the legacy of William Shakespeare is what draws them. Professor
Jonathan Bate from the University of Warwick is an expert on the Bard and renaissance literature. He’s just completed a 5 year project heading a team of 18 academics who put in the equivalent of 20 years work to produce the latest Complete Works of Shakespeare.
Jonathan Bate:
“There’s no doubt that the Complete Works of Shakespeare is the most important single piece of literature in the whole of world history. And the first folio of Shakespeare, the collection of the plays put together by his fellow actors after his death, is the most important single book in the western literary tradition. And that’s why, for me, it was so exciting to undertake this project of editing all the texts from the first folio version. I’ve got a suspicion that ours is going to be that last in the long line of distinguished print editions of Shakespeare’s Complete Works. Its bound to be the case that in future generations with the technological possibilities of the internet that advanced editorial work will take place on the internet. At the same time there’s something very satisfying about the form of a book, about having the works there physically in your hands, to be able to turn the pages and see Shakespeare’s mind at work. So the internet will be a great tool for research but for reading I think the book’s still got a way to go.”
Voice-over:
The Director of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Roger Pringle, oversees an exhibition of some of the finest surviving artifacts and editions of the playwrights work.
Roger Pringle:
“The old adage is said that no home is complete without the Bible and Shakespeare. Even today there’s a well known radio programme, ‘Desert Island Discs’, which ends by saying that the castaway has two books on the island already, the Bible and Shakespeare. It’s a book that’s given endless, of course, consolation and pleasure and profound wisdom to people for the last three or four hundred years. New editions keep coming and the pursuit of an authoritative edition of Shakespeare is, I think, never ending – it’s the like the Holy Grail. People will go on looking for it forever. And that’s because we can never be very certain or wholly certain what Shakespeare intended. Ambiguities and uncertainties as to precisely what definitive text he would like to have seen if at all, if he ever did have in fact an idea of a definitive text. There’ll always be scope for new editions. I guess that Jonathan’s RSC edition is a very important milestone in a story that lasts at least three hundred years. It takes account of a lot of recent research and will have fresh things to tell us about the text, but I don’t think even Jonathan would claim that necessarily he has arrived at the be all and end all definitive edition.”
Jonathan Bate:
“Three things keep Shakespeare alive. One is great productions of the plays on stage and screen. Another is the way that he influences later creative artists that he’s a kind of inspiring figure. But the third of course is the good texts of the plays themselves. Texts that are simultaneously authentic to the originals but also presented in such a way that they can speak to the present, be comprehended in the present. That’s why the editor is one of the crucial players in this kind of never ending story of Shakespeare’s life.”
