As already discussed in the General Syllabus for this class, a basic question for every Shakespeare course is what required textbook to choose, a problem in some ways comparable to all other school courses, from elementary through college and university. However, the number of one-volume collected editions of Shakespeare's works is much smaller than the number of textbook choices for most other courses, and some of the issues are different as well. As indicated in Prinsky's Shakespeare bibliography, besides the four main one-volume collected editions, several paperback series usually with one play per volume also are available; but since the individual cost of such volumes runs $4.95 and up, ten plays would cost $50 (or more), nearly the cost of a one-volume collected edition containing all 37 (or 38) plays and much more material as well.
 

    The four main one-volume Shakespeares -- The Complete Works of Shakespeare, ed. David Bevington, 5^th ed. (Pearson-Longman, 2004); The Riverside Shakespeare, eds. G.B. Evans and J.Tobin, 2^nd ed. (Houghton Mifflin, 1997); The Norton Shakespeare, eds. Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean Howard, and Katharine Maus (Norton, 1997); and The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, eds. Stephen Orgel and A.R. Braunmuller, 2^nd ed. (Viking-Penguin, 2002) -- can be compared and contrasted with regard to several criteria, but for most students, probably the most important feature is annotation, which should greatly aid comprehension of the text of the play being read. Two comparative reviews of three of the one-volume Shakespeares have already appeared in prestigious journals, and have been posted on my website, along with these research paper directions. (These reviews may be accessed by clicking on the list of them at the end of these research paper directions.) The relevant parts of these reviews, along with comment from an Internet review of the fifth edition of the Bevington Shakespeare (also posted on my website), should be appropriately used and cited in your comparative analysis of the annotation of 200 or 300 lines of a particular play, in all four main one-volume Shakespeares, that will be assigned to each student individually. All four editions have been placed on reserve at the ASU Reese Library, for use within the library. (Photocopies of four or five pages from each of the editions should cover the heavily-annotated 200 or 300 lines selected from the play assigned to each student.)

    Part of your job is to find 200 or 300 lines that receive very heavy annotation in the particular play you have been assigned, and to compare and contrast the amount and helpfulness of the annotation on those 200 or 300 lines in the four main one-volume Shakespeares. Study how the reviews by Rozett and Foakes approach the issue of comparison and contrast of annotation (though both of these writers ignored the earlier edition of the one-volume Pelican Shakespeare, and this one-volume edition continues to be ignored by reviewers in the scholarly journals, including in comparative reviews of the one-volume Shakespeares).

    The research paper should include not only proper citation of the primary sources, the one-volume Shakespeares, but also proper citation of the secondary sources, both within the essay body, as well as on the Works Cited page. Refer to your composition handbook about how such documentation should be handled, noting the differences in citation or documentation for book sources, scholarly periodical sources, and Internet sources. Although the periodical sources have been made easily available for the class by their being posted online, I have added indications of where new pages begin in the original print version, and so the documentation used should be handled as if these sources were used in their original print version.

    All of the material in the various secondary sources isn't relevant for this research paper, the focus of which is on annotation in the one-volume Shakespeares. The reviews bring up several other criteria not relevant to this component. According to the secondary sources, how important is the annotation in a one-volume Shakespeare, to whom, and why?

    Indicate in your research paper (five pages or more) which, if any, of the one-volume Shakespeares emerges as superior to the others with regard to annotation in the passage you have selected from your assigned play.

    As mentioned in the General Syllabus for this course, your research will be not only original (the topic not prone to lead to the error of plagiarism or undigested summary or overquotation) but also helpful, since the results of all the research papers can be compiled and a better estimation achieved of the annotation in the one-volume Shakespeares than in the reviews already published, which suffer somewhat from an anecdotal quality, lack of systematic or comprehensive survey, and sketchiness.
 
 

* Refer to my “Essay Comment Abbreviations and Symbols” on my Engl. 1101 or Engl. 1102 web pages to decode my abbreviations or symbols when I e-mail comments about your research paper after it is handed in

* For single full-fledged papers (rather than one of several small files, all of which I have to integrate into a combined test), use proper italics; for the font, use Courier New, size 10, and one-inch margins on all sides

* Identify in P1p.1 all relevant bibliographical material of the books involved in the comparison & contrast; incidentally, you are not analyzing the updated fourth edition of Bevington but the fifth edition of Bevington, copyrighted in 2004, not 1997

* Refer to and cite in P1p.1 previous reviews of the four books; also, refer to and make use of the relevant parts of the reviews — especially their comments on annotation — in your own discussion

* Give quoted excerpts from the beginning and ending lines of the passage with the annotations in question, since line numbers may and probably will vary from edition to edition ; the same for later references to words, phrases, or passages in the paper

* Indicate in P1p.1 which one of the four one-volume Shakespeares, if any, seems to emerge the annotation winner in your survey (or if two are better than the other two, one is weaker than the other three, etc.)

* Compare and contrast quantity as well as quality of the annotations of the passage, as given in the various editions — for example, whether more lines or more words (or more short passages) or both in the portion selected are annotated in one of the one-volume Shakespeares (or whether two of the four are leaders, or whether all four are exactly the same)

* Compare and contrast quality as well as quantity; even if the annotations are similar on a particular line or word, discuss whether one annotation is clearer than another, as well as, possibly (but not necessarily), fuller than another — not infrequently one edition or some editions but not all of them will annotate additional meanings of a particular word or phrase

* Mention whether any lines or words are not annotated — but should be — by all four of the one-volume Shakespeares (recall the class discussion of the reference to torchbearers in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice — how all four modern one-volume Shakespeares were somewhat deficient; or note how all four one-volume editions are somewhat or entirely deficient in the annotation of the meaning of Prince Hal’s address to Falstaff as “quilt” in 1 Henry IV (2.4) or why Peter Bullcalf is identified as “Peter Bullcalf o’the green” in 2 Henry IV (3.2); sometimes reference is required to the single-volume-per-play editions of the Arden, Oxford World’s Classics, New Cambridge, or New Penguin -- and sometimes the answer is not to be found even in these)

* A review of online Shakespeare course syllabi (which I conducted over the summer of 2004) reveals that Shakespeare editions (sometimes multiple paperbacks; sometimes collected one-volume editions) are used in courses ranging from introductory ones at two-year or “community” colleges, through upper division courses and even graduate courses in four-year colleges or universities

* qt-wl* (what to do if citing or referring to a word as a word, or a letter as a letter)

* qt-ellip (when to include, and when not to include, ellipses or “suspension points” relative to quoted material)

* Overall: many facts and figures are needed in comparison and contrast (for example, not only how many lines are annotated from the passage in each one of the four one-volume Shakespeares but also how many single words or phrases are annotated in each one)

* Overall, many facts and figures are needed for a more quantitative examination of the annotations (otherwise, the opinions expressed are too impressionistic, a fault of the two main reviews of three or the four major modern collected one-volume annotated Shakespeares): analytical comparison and contrasted is needed of (a) how many words and phrases from the passage (which must be identified by quoted excerpts from the beginning and ending lines, since line counts vary from edition to edition, particularly where any prose is involved) are annotated in each edition; (b) how many of the lines (including what percentage of the lines) are annotated in each edition (the total number of lines of the passage being analyzed in each edition may have to be indicated, since this number may well vary somewhat from edition to edition); (c) which edition or editions may give more information about a particular word, words in a line, or passage. The three factors -- (a), (b), and (c) -- should be used in the evaluation of the annotation in the four editions, and the comparison-contrast needs to be run side-by-side for all editions in every instance. Give relative percentages in one sentence that compares all the editions (that is, the Bevington = what % of lines annotated and words annotated, the Norton = what %, Riverside = what %, Pelican = what %). Also needed are counts and percentages, both individually and in comparison of the number of words and phrases glossed (not just the number and percentages of lines glossed). An overall comparison and contrast is needed, backed with many supporting illus (e.g., “words b, c, f, h, l, and m are more fully glossed in” or “phrases g, k, p, m, and r are more fully glossed in” or “words d, e, i, n, and q are unannotated or glossed in” or “while all four editions gloss b, f, l, r, t, w, and z, the Norton is consistently [or the Bevington and the Norton are consistently]”). More disc needed about where annotations might be but aren’t, in one or more of the editions -- possibly in all four editions.

* preserve some humility; remember that your analysis covers a limited portion of one play of thirty-seven (or thirty-eight) plays; also remember that both the general and special editors of the principal modern one-volume Shakespeares have not only widely published about the Renaissance and Shakespeare but also in many instances have had the practical experience of having taught English Renaissance literature and Shakespeare courses (as well as having known other teachers of Shakespeare courses) for as long as you have been alive

* provide a Table in an appendix; for example —

Table of Annotations in Comedy of Errors (1.1 - 1.2) of the Four Main Annotated One-Volume Collected Editions of Shakespeare’s Works. Key to numerical scores: 0 = not annotated; 1 = satisfactory; 2 = good. Editions listed alphabetically by editor’s or editors’ surname.

The next-to-last row, above, shows how the annotation in Bevington, Evans & Tobin, Greenblatt (et al.), or Orgell & Braunmuller of a phrase in a line or a passage (of two lines or more) might be charted. An edition with such annotation should get credit for annotating the separate words (each word in its own row) as well as for the passage (on a separate row, as in “happy . . . bad,” above). The very last row of the Table should be reserved for the totals, which you can make the computer add up in the blank cell left for these totals.

Indicate which base text you are using for line number identification, and mention that such line number identification within a particular act and scene may be approximate because of variations among the four main one-volume Shakespeares.

Note that in a word processor, a column can be selected within a table and then from the Table menu on one of the toolbars at the top of the screen turned into a “numerical” column, which will give a total (from the “sum” or “sigma” sign) in a cell left empty in the last row of the column. To select a column (or a row) within a table, place the pointer (using the mouse) in the top or bottom cell of the column; the pointer will then turn into a full-blown arrow; clicking once with the arrow selects (highlights) a cell, while double-clicking selects the entire column. If a word in the “Word or Passage” column is missed and another row needs to be added to the table (rather than moving all the items up or down), the row can be selected, using the procedure explained for selecting a column. Then from the Table menu, an additional row can be added, after specifying whether the row is to be added above or below the row that has been selected or highlighted. If a Table is to be extended over more than one page, the Table menu needs to be activated, to select the option of repeating the first row as a column heading when a Table extends across two or more pages. The widest column in the Table will have to be for “Word or Passage”; column widths can be adjusted by placing the mouse pointer on the borderline and causing the pointer to become a line with tiny arrows extending to right and left. Dragging the pointer in this form adjusts the borderlines.

Review by Foakes (click anywhere on this line)
 

Review by Rozett (click anywhere on this line)
 

Review by White (click anywhere on this line)
   

Review of The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, 2nd edition, eds. Orgell & Braunmuller