The New Kittredge Shakespeare The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and: The New Kittredge Shakespeare The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, and: The New Kittredge Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice, and: The New Kittredge Shakespeare The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra (review)

In 1936, The New York Times published a cartoon showing a session of English 2 at Harvard with William Shakespeare busily taking notes on the meaning of his plays. ¹ The teacher, unmistakably portrayed in his three-piece suit and full white beard, is the legendary George Lyman Kittredge. Kittredge, then widely considered America's leading Shakespeare scholar, ended his forty-eight-year Harvard career that year. In that same year, Ginn and Company published Kittredge's edition of Shakespeare's works.

Kittredge continued to work on his edition until his death in 1941. In 1963, Irving Ribner began revising Kittredge's introductions and texts; between 1966 and 1969, he published individual volumes of all the plays and poems as the "Kittredge Shakespeare." Ribner's work culminated in Ginn's new Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Ribner and Kittredge, in 1971. (A similar situation where Hardin Craig's edition of Shakespeare was revised by David Bevington-with both last names listed on the spine-led some to believe that Bevington's first name was Craig.)

Now, a new series associated with Kittredge's name, "The New Kittredge Shakespeare," is appearing under the general editorship of James H. Lake. After examining the first four soft-cover volumes, I must say that Professor Kittredge's memory deserves better. So do readers seeking single-volume editions of Shakespeare's plays.

Of the volumes that have been published, I consider four titles here: Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, both edited by Sarah Hatchuel; Romeo and Juliet, edited by Bernice W. Kliman and Laury Magnus; and The Merchant of Venice, edited by the late Kenneth S. Rothwell. Among these editors, Hatchuel is the relative newcomer. She earned her doctorate in English after spending years in the fields of management and economics, and she has published two books on Shakespeare and film. Kliman and Rothwell were cofounders of the Shakespeare on Film Newsletter, and Magnus is also interested in Shakespeare's plays in production and on film. The interest in Shakespeare these editors share has nothing to do with Kittredge.

The four volumes follow the same format, with variations in the individual texts. The two-page introductions written by Kittredge for the 1936 edition are excerpted by Kliman and Magnus, and Rothwell and embellished by Hatchuel. The editors then provide two to four pages of general critical remarks under the rubric "How does the play work?" (Only Rothwell footnotes his introduction.) The plays' production and film histories are then treated at greater length than the critical introductions.

Following the play's text is a segment, "How to Read 'the Play' as Performance"; a timeline (going from 753 BC to 1623 AD in Caesar and from day 1 to day 6 in Romeo); "Topics for Discussion and Further Study"; a bibliography; and a filmography. Except in the edition of Romeo and Juliet, the editors provide texts based on Kittredge's, with some definitions taken from his glossary and others added by the editors and so marked. The editors also supply running commentary on how speeches and scenes may be played and how they are treated in various film versions. The text is lightly sprinkled with a few small, low-quality film stills. Kliman and Magnus announce early that their text of...