Shakespeare, Milton and Eighteenth-Century Literary Editing: The Beginnings of Interpretative Scholarship

by Marcus Walsh

Overview

This study sets out to investigate the theoretical and especially the interpretative bases of eighteenth-century literary editing. Extended chapters on Shakespearean and Miltonic commentary and editing demonstrate that the work of pioneering editors and commentators, such as Patrick Hume, Lewis Theobald, Zachary Pearce, and Edward Capell, was based on developed, sophisticated, and often clearly articulated theories and methods of textual understanding and explanation. Marcus Walsh relates these interpretative theories and methods to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglican biblical hermeneutics, and to a number of debates in modern editorial theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521602907
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/05/2004
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Eighteenth-Century English Literature and Thought , #35
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.55(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Some theoretical perspectives for the study of eighteenth-century editing; 2. Making sense of Scripture: biblical hermeneutics in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England; 3. Making sense of Milton: the editing of Paradise Lost; 4. Making sense of Shakespeare: editing from Pope to Capell; 5. Conclusion; Select bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"Shakespeare, Milton, and Eighteenth-Century Literary Editing will surely win log-standing respect among Miltonists, Shakespeareans, and specialists in the eighteenth century." Religion & Literature

"This book is superior to others in that it delves into the theoretical assumptions of the critics...." Bibliotheque D'Humanisme

"Teachers and scholars of early modern English textual studies will likely find much of interest in this accessible and intriguing book." Catherine S. Cox, Sixteenth-Century Journal

"Marcus Walsh's book charts the editing of Shakespeare and Milton during the eighteenth century and provides a careful and convincing examination of the origins of the editing of English literary texts." Modern Philology

‘In an extremely interesting essay on Shakespeare and philosophy, Philip Smallwood examines the relationship of Shakespeare to eighteenth-century (and even twentieth-century) philosophy.’ Jaquelyn W. Walsh, Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

From the Publisher