Kruschek: Masten's Beaumont and/or Fletcher

Jeffrey Masten’s article re: the “collaboration and the interpretation of Renaissance drama” begins with a discussion of the term “anonymous” as it relates to dramatic materials in the time before the 1600s. He states that this was a “historical moment prior to the emergence of the author in its modern form…[and is a] mode of textual production that distances the writer(s) from the interpreting audience…[and] disperses the authorial voice” (363). The result is “a different configuration of authorities controlling texts and…constraining their interpretation” (363). Overall, Masten is arguing that considerations of “the previous owner of the text, the publisher, the actors, the theatre audience, and the reads of the printed texts” are more relevant to the interpretation of the play than the author(s), as opposed to what Hoy argued (380).

Having taken Dr. Theile’s Shakespeare class in the Spring of 2010, Masten’s article was quite interesting. In fact, my term paper topic for that class covered in greater detail his discussion on page 364 of the role of the acting company in altering the plays themselves. From memory here, and sorry I cant cite this, my research indicated that not only did actors at the time improvise based on audience reactions, etc. that Masten brings up, but also because a theater, which would have one acting company, would have multiple plays running at a given time. That means that actors had to learn lines and act in several different plays that might show one right after the other. It would be easy for me to see how actors at the time would tinker with, or in some cases simply not be able to fully memorize, the lines of a play, which could lead to the alteration of a specific line(s). Said line(s) could at some point have made their way into the “final cut” of an “official” printed copy.

In Theile’s class, we also discussed several times that a play isn’t meant to be read, it is meant to be played, i.e. seen, heard, experienced, and that our interpretations, and subsequent liking or disliking, of a play we have read may be vastly different when actually acted out. I loved the only paragraph on pg 366, and especially the line about needing “to consider the social production of different genres and the ways in which they reach print.” So, in that sense I think that Masten is right to “call for the revision in the way we have read Renaissance dramatic collaboration” (372). In watching Macbeth at the Guthrie that spring, I noticed that editing decisions had been made with regards to the lines, i.e. it wasn’t read perfectly line by line. It appears that editing is still happening the Shakespeare’s work.

Questions: I think that Masten’s decision to begin and end his chapter with Foucault’s quote was an interesting one given the recent-ish obsession with figuring out who actually wrote the plays associated with Shakespeare. This is really more personal introspection on my part, but this chapter made me ask myself how I would really feel if it came to light that Shakespeare’s plays were written by someone other than the man we think did. I would still think the work beautiful, but sort of mourn the metaphorical death of the solitary genius whittling away at his craft. Logically, however, I think it makes more sense to recognize the role the theater as an enterprise would have/could have impacted the final editing of any given play.