Theobald's Double Falsehood (Shakespeare's Cardenio?)

Details for our next meeting of the Early Modern Reading Group:  

DATE: Monday 10 May  

TIME: 1pm-2pm  

VENUE: John Medley West, 216b  

TEXT: Lewis Theobald's Double Falsehood (1727)  

The 18th Century Shakespeare editor Lewis Theobald presented his Double Falsehood as a Shakespearean adaptation; he claimed to have had no fewer than 3 manuscript copies of the lost Shakespeare-Fletcher collaboration, Cardenio (performed twice in 1613), in front of him as he updated the old play for his Theatre Royal audience.

Stephen Greenblatt and Gary Taylor have each produced their own versions of a Cardenio play in recent years (Taylor reverse-engineering Theobald's text and reconstructing the 'shakespearean' original, as he notoriously did with the Oxford Pericles in the mid 80's). Brean Hammond (Nottingham) has also now edited Theobald's text for the Arden Shakespeare series (publication imminent), and the Royal Shakespeare Company has plans to produce the play next (northern) summer. So what better time to have a read and judge for ourselves how Shakespearean this play actually is?An (uncritical) edition is available online here.   

And FYI here are some recent news stories about the play(s):  

BBC 

The Australian 

ABC 

Hope to see many of you at the next meeting!

Dryden's The State of Innocence

The first meeting got off to a positive but quiet start, so with a view to making participation as convenient as possible for those who might be interested in joining us, the next meeting will occur at lunchtime, as follows:
WHERE: John Medley West Tower, Seminar Room 216b
WHEN: Monday 12 April, 1pm - 2pm (bring your lunch if you like!)
TEXT: Dryden’s The State of Innocence (a Restoration stage adaptation of Paradise Lost)
Limited photocopies of the California edn of Dryden's play are available from the Culture and Communication office. They have been placed in the magazine holders standing on the bench top just inside the English library, John Medley West 217 (marked "texts for reading groups")
There is also an online edition available (not annotated) via Rutgers
And now that Bruce Eames has loaded EEBO data into the Library Catalogue (thanks!), Dryden's play can easily be downloaded in an early print edn form via the catalogue
Hope to see many of you there!

Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle

Details of the first meeting of the Early Modern Reading Group as follows:

TEXT: Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle

WHEN: 5pm, Thurs 04 March

WHERE: Tsubu (Postgrad Bar)