Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Final Point 1

Final Point 1 - 

As our group discussed our possible audience for our edition a high school or junior high audience was quickly agreed upon. Two of us in the group are English Teaching majors and this is partially our motivation but we also feel that it would be enjoyable to create an edition that introduces a fresh and modern audience to the classic brilliance of Shakespeare. We also feel better equipped to create an edition for high school students compared to college students. 


As we went through our editions, we decided the following audiences for the editions and the following reasoning for these decisions. We also came to this conclusion through the way these editions connected to their audience:

Orgel's Pelican Macbeth: A high school or general reader audience

Reasoning- Simple language is used with enough information to inform the audience without overwhelming them. This edition connected to their audience through simple but interesting contexts (for example, gender)


Arden's As You Like It: A Shakespearean scholarly audience

Reasoning- A very heavy and dense language is used which we feel is intended for a scholarly audience. Also, a large amount of detailed information that is not needed for understanding the play is included. There is also an extensive amount of footnotes that would only be considered helpful by Shakespearean experts. 


Critical Controversy edition of The Tempest: Graduate students

Reasoning- Articles included are traditional and historical spanning from post colonial to feminism. We feel that the critical essays would be most helpful for graduate students who are studying at an upper level but are not quite experts on Shakespeare and needs as much information offered in the Arden edition. 


Norton Critical edition of Richard III: A collegiate audience

Reasoning- Critical and contextual scholarly articles are found in the edition. Elevated but not exceptionally difficult language is used. The footnotes are not overwhelming. AP high school students might find this edition helpful, but we would mainly place it in an college 200 or 300 level class. 


Kamps and Raber's Measure for Measure: Undergraduate audience

Reasoning- Historical and critical contexts are provided. The language is too dense for high school students but this edition is not detailed enough for graduate students. We also took into account that some of the historical documents included had the text modernized so they could be read easily therefore, not appealing to graduate students or scholars. 


Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Welcome to our Shakespeare blog!

This is the blog for BYU ENGL 382: Shakespeare.

Group members:

  • Jessi Gilley
  • Becca Kershisnik
  • Kelly Rogers
  • Lauren Coleman
  • Jennifer Egan


Thanks for checking out our blog! Here are a few inspirational Shakespeare quotes to kick it off.




And now that we've inspired you, allow us to entertain you:

A little Richard III humor for ya!

This is how we keep Shakespeare modern and relevant

"Out, damned spot!" 

Check in over the next few months to see what fun Shakespeare stuff we will share!