Pragmatics and the editing of Shakespeare

This paper reviews the practice by editors of Shakespeare's plays of introducing a great many stage directions. This practice is illustrated through Antony and Cleopatra. It is never made clear by editors whether they are seeking to restore the text to its original state by these additions or whether it is merely something extra added to help leaders of the plays. The extra stage directions are included in a form similar to that of other directions and sometimes they seem to reflect what editors think must have been in the original. However, in adding the stage directions, editors pay little attention to the language and even less to the pragmatics of the text; this is for the most part because editors of the plays are literary scholars without much knowledge of linguistics. Language is not normally a section in the introduction of modern editions of Shakespeare. Editors equally pay little attention to the various productions of the play which they are editing in making these additions, although most modern editions contain a detailed section on the production history of the play. In fact, the majority of these added stage directions are traditional and few editors appear to have considered their usefulness or appropriateness. Inevitably they are also interpretative. But this critical interpretation is concealed from the readers who are made to feel that they are reading the original text. Many of these directions are either wrong or unhelpful. Since the aim of editing is usually to restore the text as left by the author (and not as the author might have intended it to be), editors of the plays ought to be more responsible in adding stage directions by making clear precisely what it is they are attempting to do by introducing them into their texts. The paper therefore raises important matters of principle about editing plays matters which appear to have been overlooked in theoretical discussions of editing.