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 Last fall, the English department sent out its first Thanksgiving card, which included a pledge card with a quotation from William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: “I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks.” We were quite gratified by the response and thank you all for your generosity. A number of our Friends included with their gifts a query about the fidelity of the Twelfth Night quotation, pointing out that we had neglected the third instance of thanks. How could this have happened?
We turned to Professor Ron Levao for an explanation, which we are happy to provide here:
There seems to be an error in the first printed version we have, the Folio (now called the First Folio) of 1623. That is the version quoted on the Thanksgiving pledge card. The second line is two syllables short of pentameter and these two lines were thus dropped in the Second Folio of 1632, but then “corrected” by later editors, as editors sometimes do to difficult lines in Shakespeare. The version our Friends quoted was provided by Lewis Theobald in 1733. Modern editions sometimes follow the Folio, sometimes Theobald. Roger Warren and Stanley Wells in The Oxford Shakespeare follow the Folio, explaining that the missing words signify the speaker, Sebastian, stumbling in embarrassment over his need to hold off the affectionate Antonio, to whom he owes his life. The Arden Shakespeare includes a full description of these changes.
In sum, everyone is right—to which we can only add, and thanks!
The department’s commitment to the Bard mirrors that of our Friends. This year we hosted two events promoting Shakespeare’s work. On Thursday, March 22, the undergraduate program organized a colloquium on Shakespeare’s sonnets for teachers of advanced placement English classes. Professors Ann Baynes Coiro and Thomas Fulton shared their expertise with over 50 high school teachers from across the state. Then, on Friday, April 13, Rutgers English hosted the Shakespeare in East Asia conference, which was organized by English honors student Ching Wen Rebecca Hu, who was then completing her thesis with Professors Ron Levao and Shuang Shen. Professor Bi-qi Beatrice Lei, of National Taiwan University, and Professor Alexander C. Y. Huang, of Penn State University, University Park, gave presentations on the reception, adaptation, and influence of the Bard’s plays in East Asia. The conference concluded with a performance of The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged) by the College Avenue Players, a student theater troupe.
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Thomas Fulton at the Shakespeare colloquium |
Shakespeare in East Asia conference:
Jacqueline Miller, Bi-qi Beatrice Lei,
Ching Wen Rebecca Hu, Alexander Huang,
Ron Levao, and Barry Qualls
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