The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #92402   Message #1765206
Posted By: GUEST,Desdemona
20-Jun-06 - 10:58 PM
Thread Name: BS: Much Ado About ...
Subject: RE: BS: Much Ado About ...
Is the searchable Oxford free? If a comprehensive source of the plays and sonnets is available free of charge, I'd say it's an excellent resource, IF they're good, annotated editions. On the other hand, since there was no notion of "definitive" versions of these texts in the 16th/17th centuries (see the "good" and "bad" Quartos, the Folio editions, etc., and the fact that it was only much later that they were even divided into scenes, acts, etc.), it's arguable that there is no "real" version of Shakespeare. In any case, my feeling is that anything that makes the material readily available has to be a good thing.

~D