Reading What's There

Essays on Shakespeare in Honor of Stephen Booth

Edited by Michael J. Collins - Contributions by Thomas L. Berger; Ralph Alan Cohen; Laurie Ellinghausen; Michael Ellis-Tolaydo; Brett Gamboa; Michael Goldman; Jay L. Halio; James E. Hirsh; Margaret Maurer; Nicholas Nace; Louisa Newlin and Mark Womack

Stephen Booth has, for over forty years, proposed a distinct understanding of how Shakespeare’s plays and poems work upon us and a unique and rigorous way of reading them. The essays here reflect his insights and method and are meant both to recognize his monumental achievements as a critic and to suggest the enduring value of his work to Shakespeare scholarship.

The first chapter explains both the method and the strengths of Booth’s approach to Shakespeare. The next two—on Romeo and Juliet and The Rape of Lucrece—demonstrate Booth’s way of reading Shakespeare. The following four chapters develop Booth’s contention that Shakespeare often sets “audiences to watch—or, rather, to try to watch—a play other than the one he shows them.” The next two chapters look at textual problems from Booth’s perspective and explore the challenges editors face in their attempts to establish authentic texts for modern readers. The last three chapters focus on teaching and include a description of Stephen Booth’s teaching practices and his own renown explanation, through a commentary on Philip D. Eastman’s Go, Dog. Go!, of the way poetry works upon its readers and the reasons they value it highly. The book concludes with a bibliography of Stephen Booth’s work.

University Press Copublishing Division / University of Delaware Press

Pages: 188 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-61149-507-2 • Hardback • December 2014 • $105.00 • (£81.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Shakespeare, Literary Criticism / General, Literary Criticism / Drama

Reading What's There

Essays on Shakespeare in Honor of Stephen Booth

Hardback

Summary

Stephen Booth has, for over forty years, proposed a distinct understanding of how Shakespeare’s plays and poems work upon us and a unique and rigorous way of reading them. The essays here reflect his insights and method and are meant both to recognize his monumental achievements as a critic and to suggest the enduring value of his work to Shakespeare scholarship.

The first chapter explains both the method and the strengths of Booth’s approach to Shakespeare. The next two—on Romeo and Juliet and The Rape of Lucrece—demonstrate Booth’s way of reading Shakespeare. The following four chapters develop Booth’s contention that Shakespeare often sets “audiences to watch—or, rather, to try to watch—a play other than the one he shows them.” The next two chapters look at textual problems from Booth’s perspective and explore the challenges editors face in their attempts to establish authentic texts for modern readers. The last three chapters focus on teaching and include a description of Stephen Booth’s teaching practices and his own renown explanation, through a commentary on Philip D. Eastman’s Go, Dog. Go!, of the way poetry works upon its readers and the reasons they value it highly. The book concludes with a bibliography of Stephen Booth’s work.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / University of Delaware Press

Pages: 188 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9½

978-1-61149-507-2 • Hardback • December 2014 • $105.00 • (£81.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Shakespeare, Literary Criticism / General, Literary Criticism / Drama

Author

Michael J. Collins is professor of English and emeritus dean at Georgetown University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Michael J. Collins

The Interpretive Fallacy
Mark Womack

What Passed wasn’t Prologued: False Advertising in Romeo and Juliet
Brett Gamboa

Mutatis Non Mutandis: The Reading Mind and Its Autocorrect Function in The Rape of Lucrece
Nicholas Nace

On the Final Songs in Love’s Labors Lost
Michael Goldman

The Second Part of Henry IV: Expectation and Disappointment
James Hirsh

Naughty Orators: the Knotty Discourse of All's Well that Ends Well
Ralph Alan Cohen

The Tragic Dimension in Shakespeare’s Comedies
Jay L. Halio

Leonato and Beatrice at 5.4.97 of Much Ado About Nothing
Margaret C. Maurer

Mistakes were Made: Errata in Early Modern English Playbooks
Thomas Berger

Teaching Shakespeare’s Sonnets the Boothian Way
Laurie Ellinghausen

Taught by a Teacher to Teach: A Personal History or What I Learned from Stephen Booth
Louisa Newlin

Go, Dog. Go!: A Lesson on the Pleasures of Language
Michael Ellis-Tolaydo

A Bibliography of the Work of Stephen Booth
Brett Gamboa and Michael J. Collins

About the Contributors