DAVID BACIU, ENGLEZA-GERMANA

Modelarea Canonului Shakespeareian

1. Discuss the differences between the Quarto and Folio edition of King Lear.

The main difference betwen the two Shakespearian formats (quarto and folio) it's size. The Quarto
format is equivalent of a modern paper (A4) and it was the first edtition printed with Shakespeare’s
plays in early 1600, but the Shakespeare collections was printed also in a big book, a Folio, in 1623. The
book wich now is called "The First Folio".

The problem here is that the modern editions of Shakespeare take the list of the plays from the Folio but
not always the text, because almost half of the plays have been printed before the folio and sometimes
what folio's printed was a text to replace the earlier one, but very frequent the folio was mainly a reprint
and that makes a hard job for the editors because they have to take serious account of publication
before Folio.

2. Discuss Edward III as a collaborative play by Kyd and Shakespeare.

In the last years it s been a debate among the editors on either is Edward III a part of Shakespeare’s
Canon or not. It s appear to be a touch on the text by Shakespeare. Sir Brian Vickers from University of
London did a lingvistic analysis on the text and confirmed the fact that there is a bunch of phrases that
were used by Shakespear. Recentley Thomas Kyd, has been suggested as the primary author because his
technique has been spoted in over 14 scenes in Edward III. The logical conclusion on this debate it
would be a collaboration between the 2 authors. The probability of this is high, but still it is speculate
that Thomas Kyd has write most of the text, wich is why he is suggested to be the main author of this
play. The play was printed in 1596 anonymously, wich is the main problem in decide how much to
allocate from the play and for who.

3.Why was Edward III included in the Shakespeare canon only in 1760?
Even if the play was printed in 1596, like I said, it was anonymously. So in 1760 it was included in the
Folio as a Shakespearian Canon by Edward Capell, who conclude the play as one write by Shakespeare.
At the time, that colcusion was not accepted by everyone, not even today the idea is not fully accepted,
and it s contested by a numerous critics. The coclusion of Edward III, was in 2009 by Brian Vickers who
assigned to Shakespare only 40% of the text, the rest of it going to Thomas Kyd, who was named the
primary author of the play. Even if we still don t know for sure how much each and every one of them
has contriubute on the text, the play is recognized and assigned to William Shakespeare.