Final Point 3

Choose a combination of play and audience.  Explain what excites you about this combination and offer some preliminary ideas about what you hope to do with your edition.

Macbeth targeted to high school students

- Purpose: share interesting things that would get students excited about Shakespeare (and English literature in general)

Examples: 

- share background on Shakespeare’s life, but not too in depth (think Macbeth’s beginning without giving a one-sided view)

- have a section in the back dedicated to talking about what other people have written about Macbeth, and talk about how different play adaptations work and stuff (don’t include the actual sources, just quote from the sources

           - I love how our edition seems to be so focused on general high school students, and how I believe it will get those students excited about not only reading Shakespeare but performing it. I want to focus a lot on the different ways the different characters were performed, so that the students have a better way of imagining in their heads how the play pans out. Also, it’s great to give them such a knowledge of the performances, because then in drama class they have more to work with when deciding to actually perform one of Shakespeare’s plays. This edition would be geared towards having them perform this exact play.

- background information to Shakespeare and historical information of the time period (similar to the pelican version).

- Movie and plays adaptations

            - look up major play and movies that would get students excited to watch a production; go through a few different performances and the different ways people have performed the characters.

- how Macbeth would have been performed

- Gender roles during the time (focusing on Lady Macbeth). I love this one, because it would help to generate deeper discussions on political/social issues not only of their time but of ours, as well. This is a good basis for great in-class discussions that teachers would love to have. If it’s displayed in an interesting, fun way, and not just in long scholarly articles (for example, written in an informal tone), the students (I think) would be able to have fun with it and be able to be completely involved in the conversation.

Final Point 2

How each version annotates the texts:

Macbeth: Basic modern explanation for cultural differences

- Pro: Easy to understand; great for first time readers.

- Con: Can be overly simplistic; not everything is explained

As You Like It: A thorough explanation of almost every line; references parts in the introduction and examples of rhetorical devices.

- Pro: A very informative addition, especially if you have read the work before and want more information.

- Con: Can be very overwhelming and largely ignored if you aren’t completely interested in finding more information; not the best for a first time read through.

The Tempest: Good balance between As You Like It and Macbeth; it explains things in more thorough detail than Macbeth, but doesn’t go to quite the lengths that As You Like It does

- Pro: Very informative without being too overwhelming

- Con: The lines aren’t numbered when there’s something to be explained, which can cause confusion and missing of important information

Richard 3: Very similar to Macbeth; the annotations mainly deal in vocabulary words only

- Pro: It’s a great way to expand your vocabulary

- Con: There’s not much more to learn than what you find in your brain and in new vocab words

Measure for Measure: Simple and thorough annotations.

- Pro: Similar to Macbeth, the annotations are easy to read; there are also more references to cultural contexts and situations.

- Con: Sometimes they can be overly obvious, it feels like an insult to the reader.

Re-imagining the annotation:

Macbeth Act 1 Scene 5

I imagine it as somewhere between the actual Macbeth annotation and the Tempest annotation. High schoolers need to be aware of more things in the text than just the basics, but they don’t need too much information to understand enough of the play to have intellectual conversations about it. While the original Macbeth annotations focus mainly on vocabulary words, our version will expand to cultural references and a better explanations of certain phrases that Shakespeare uses that aren’t explained by the original. However, it won’t get as specific and annotated as the Tempest.

Exactly, we would want to get past merely understanding what Shakespeare is saying and start looking into the cultural context and references to make the dialogue easier to connect to in our time as well as in Shakespeare’s. But we won’t go too in depth with the annotations, just enough to give our audience the knowledge that these things weren’t done randomly by Shakespeare, but he actually had a reason for writing the story out the way he did.

For example, Act 1 Scene 5 of Macbeth is when Lady Macbeth first finds out about Macbeth’s prophecy.  We could mark the differences in speech patterns, more so than the Pelican version, so as to modernize some of the words, so no confusion occurs.  Such as, “Hie thee hither, that I may pour my spirits into thine ear”. However, the purpose of the footnotes is to add to the play (facts, clarification, context), not add opinions.

Other things we could do is add markers (similar in the way Measure for Measure does) so the reader will know when there is a footnote.  It creates smoother reading so the person doesn't have to question if a certain word has an annotation or not while reading.

Final Point 1

Look over the editions for this class.  

1. (a) Who are their audiences? (b) What do the editors do to connect with their audiences?

- Macbeth

  a)  General audience, both new to Shakespeare and somewhat knowledgable

  b)  Short, general information about the time period, Shakespeare, and simple footnotes for clarification

- As You Like it

  a)  Specific educated audience.  They know a lot about Shakespeare and this specific play.  It adds new information based on the most knowledgeable research

  b) Very detailed introduction, footnotes, and appendixes;  

- The Tempest

  a)  Essayist, controversy seekers, and critical thinkers

  b)  Gives many ambiguous subjects with many different writers.

- Richard 3

  a) people interested in what other authors had to say around the time of Shakespeare; many of the essays in the back after the play are from the 1500s about King Richard and the plays of Shakespeare, as well as other plays and poems from the same time that expounded on Richard

  b) focuses on the cinema of Richard 3 and ways in which the character of Richard was created; the focus is more on those performing the play rather than those merely reading it

- Measure for Measure

  a) 16th Century Historians

  b) Brief historical intro, historical context footnotes, long chapters dealing with themes during the time of Shakespeare (such as government, marriage, and religion)

2. What kinds of audience might your group be interested in connecting with?

- General audience, with limited knowledge of Shakespeare. High school or freshman of college level

Why?

- general audience equals more sales

- easier to write; about our same level of understanding

- there is still detailed and new information within Shakespeare editions for general audiences. It allows people to learn more without having to read incredibly in-depth editions that take a lot of time and effort . . . especially when these editions are being read for fun and for individual edification on a busy schedule.