#panhasablog

Horrible Staging Idea #105 (I think)

Hello there @panhasablog​! Good to hear you’ve been enjoying the editions discussion. I’ve heard that editions you mention are pretty standard editions in the US, but I haven’t had any personal experience with them since they’re not at all common in the UK where I live and work.

From what I know of these editions, though, they’re not the same scholarly standard as the Oxford Shakespeare, New Cambridge Shakespeare and Arden Shakespeare editions I covered in my original post on editions. They’re good in their own right, but the standard by which I’m judging is whether they’re suitable for in-depth, high-level study of Shakespeare.

The Bevington seems to be about as good as the Norton Shakespeare or the Riverside Shakespeare, and has about as much information as those tomes contain, with all the limitations of any complete works. And though I introduced one of them (the Norton) in my editions guide, I would say that a complete works edition is not ideal for serious Shakespeareans or anyone who wants to study beyond undergraduate level. I would even go as far as to say that a serious undergraduate should consult some proper single-text editions (in a library if you can’t afford it) instead of relying solely on a complete works. 

I think I’m right in thinking, though, that the Bevington doesn’t include the different versions of King Lear, or many of the texts that are now considered part of Shakespeare’s extended canon (like the speech from Thomas More or Arden of Faversham). So in that sense some scholars, especially those interested in authorship, may consider it a little outdated.

As I said in my original post, there are a few standards by which I judge the scholarly quality of an edition which one can apply to any edition. 

The first is the presence of comprehensive and in-depth scholarly footnotes (preferably on-page) that gloss the meanings of particular words and provide crucial historical interpretations of the text. Both the Bevington and the Folger have notes, but the Folger has only the most basic notes that take up a page all by themselves. The Bevington puts the notes on the page, and though they’re a little bit more in-depth than Folger, they’re still more geared toward students than scholars. 

The second standard is how the edition deals with textual variations. I can’t get my hands on a copy, so I don’t know how the Folger and the Bevington deal with this, but don’t think they have it on page with the play text. Again, this is not information an average reader needs, but for a serious scholar, it’s crucial information, and renders the editorial process more transparent, since one can see the kinds of choices editors have made, and the choices they had to choose from, as well as any emendations to the text. 

The final standard is whether the edition contains an extended introduction (at least a hundred pages in standard paperback size) that deals with the dating, provides a general interpretation, historical textual interpretations, the history of performance, and the approach the editor has taken in editing the text. You won’t find introductions of this kind in any complete works, and that’s fine, since there’s limited space in those kinds of editions. Like other complete works, the Bevington has a short introduction before each play. The Folger edition opts for a simpler general introduction which is great for the high school kind of level it’s aimed at.

So, as far as I know, the Bevington is a good complete works by a respected Shakespeare scholar that provides most things an undergraduate student of Shakespeare will need. The Folger is, again, a good edition that provides the kind of information that a high school student would benefit from, akin to the Cambridge School Shakespeare editions or Oxford School Shakespeare editions. It’s also good for a general readership like the Penguin Shakespeare. The point is that there are different editions for different kinds of readers, and what might suit one set of people won’t do for others. The reason you don’t normally find the Bevington and Folger discussed alongside the Oxford, New Cambridge and Arden editions because they’re not in the same category of edition. 

you might be thinking “wow did max take so long to answer this ask because he was constructing a 10k word response?” no i just have adhd i apologize for how long this has sat in my inbox

GOD okay so i am liable to headcanon any character i particularly like as trans, but i think it works really well for edmund in particular! edmund’s external struggle, at least at the start of the play, is that he cannot live up to edgar because of the circumstances he was born with, which are entirely out of his control. if we view edgar as a cis man (or amab at least idk we could get into trans edgar we could get into it), viewing edmund as a trans man adds another dimension - not only does no one take him seriously as a political figure / future heir / legitimate son, but no one takes him seriously as a man, either, or as a son at all. his jealousy stems from the fact that edgar has EVERYTHING through NO effort of his own - not just an inheritance and their father’s respect, but a “male body” and a man’s place in society, all given to him just because he was born one way that edmund wasn’t.

(”male body” in quotes because gender isn’t real and any man’s body is a male body etc etc but i mean a body traditionally recognized as male)

misc thoughts about this:

edmund makes use of subtlety and subterfuge, traditionally considered more “feminine” forms of battle, which, like. u KNOW this boy is gonna use anything he can to get a leg up and if that involves coming at problems from a “feminine” angle because he was raised as a girl then he’s gonna do it

his first monologue is the “thou, nature, art my goddess” speech, where he says that there’s no inherent difference between he and edgar, just the social construct of “legitimacy” separating them. his next monologue (”this is the excellent foppery of the world”), has him pretty much saying “fuck ‘fate,’ fuck ‘destiny,’ and fuck a tumblr astrology fandom, i am what i am because i choose to be and i would’ve been this way no matter how i was born.” with trans edmund, these also read as, basically, “look, i’m a man, i’ve always been a man no matter how i was born or what my body looks like, i would have been a man no matter how i’d been born, and the only reason edgar is seen as a man and i’m not is because of some bullshit social construct around the whole idea.”

i have a lot of thoughts about trans people going “fuck it, i’m gonna MAKE myself into who i am and i don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks about it”

edmund “i’m a man and neither you nor god can stop me” gloucester

depending on how you read gloucester - as a deliberately bad father or as a guy pretty out of touch with his kids - his acceptance of edmund as his inheriting son after edgar vanishes could be either “fuck wait i need an heir now i guess i’ll just pretend my daughter is my son” OR as “wait, maybe i need to get to know the bastard kid a little more?? maybe i should start with acknowledging the gender thing???”

speaking of edgar. ah, the age-old question: “why do edgar and edmund have names that sound so similar? that’s so confusing.” because edmund picked out his own name when he was a teenager and he wanted his name to match edgar’s because that was before their relationship fell apart :)

possibly a reason he jumps on the chance to court both goneril and regan so fast, because Gotta Prove My Manliness (and also, if you view him as either younger or just not sure what he’s doing, a reason why he gets in over his head so quickly)

possibly also a reason he agrees to duel edgar despite the fact that he doesn’t have to, because, again, Gotta Prove My Manliness (though i don’t think that’s the only reason!)

also also possibly. this post and this post combined in my brain today so please consider: edmund and cordelia are so so similar. cordelia is the anti-edmund, kind of, but she is also sort of the pre-edmund edmund. she’s the kid who was mistreated and didn’t turn traitor. she’s edmund before he went to the dark side, so to speak. and if edmund is trans she can also be likened to his pre-transition self. why does edmund want her dead so badly, even when they’ve never interacted on page? because he wants to kill his “old” self and this is the best way he knows how.

“I think i have a new theory on literary analysis. It may just be a...”

PLEASE TELL

okay so, there’s this subgenre of queer lit. its incredibly optimistic, happy, and blatantly gay. i call it, solarpunk queer. the elements of this subgenre is:

immediately blantantly queer, often as soon as the first page

an entirely queer cast (maybe one token straight character). characters themselves would identify in canon

characters are already ‘out’ by default

conflict is not about being gay. rather, it follows the traditional conflict of the other genre it belongs to (which is never drama. for example, rock and riot is also YA, and its conflict is about finding yourself and going to prom)

also follows the tropes of this other genre

if homophobia exists, it is veiled, in the rpg term of the word. characters can be affected, but only for a short amount of time, never severely, and is immediately resolved in canon

almost always written by queer writers. i’d argue that writers who aren’t queer cannot write this subgenre because:

blatant wish fulfillment

fannish (unashamedly uses fandom tropes)

found!! family! trope!!!

solarpunk. the world is dark but we have each other, and life is good

queer characters have plot armor. often no major character death

always has a happy ending

OH GEEZ.

Vasha, sobbing: “But my hair!”

Kleos, cuts off a lock of their curls and weaves it into a little braid from what’s left of Vasha’s hair: “Now it’s all better. Better than before you cut it, even.”

Vasha, stares, still crying: “… it doesn’t match my color scheme.”

Kleos, finger guns: “But now you match mine.”