Shakespeare the Reviser - by Marina Tarlinskaya (Hardcover)

About the Book

The book examines the distinction between revision and rewriting in Early New English literature, analysing over 50 poems and plays from the sixteenth to seventeenth century. Focusing on A Lover's Complaint, Double Falsehood, and adaptations of Richard II and The Duchess of Malfi, it explores how texts evolved through revision and reinterpretation.

Book Synopsis

The project researches the difference between a revision vs. a rewriting. The book explores the English poems and plays of the Early New English period, from the sixteenth to the beginning of seventeenth century, with over 50 entries examined. The main material is the poem A Lover's Complaint; the play Double Falsehood by Lewis Theobald; the revised and rewritten post-Restoration plays such as Richard II (revised by Lewis Theobald), and The Fatal Secret (rewritten Webster's The Duchess of Malfi) by Lewis Theobald. An example of authorial revision is Sonnets 2 and 138.

From the Back Cover

Shakespeare as a reviser of others' work is an area of growing scholarly interest. Marina Tarlinskaya draws a formal distinction between editing, revision, and rewriting. The poem A Lover's Complaint serves as an example of revision. Based on linguistic-statistical analysis, Tarlinskaya suggests that Shakespeare needed a poem to round off his 1609 sonnet sequence and, having neither the time nor the inclination to compose one from scratch, he revised an earlier work from the 1590s by a now-forgotten author, adding vocabulary characteristic of his later plays.

About the Author

Marina Tarlinskaja is Professor Emerita in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington.