Performance, Annotation, and the Play of Interpretative Possibility: The Opening of King Lear

This article begins as a closeexamination of the contrasting ways in which a short passage from theopening of Shakespeare's King Lear has been explicated in modern editionsof the play. From this micro-study it then seeks to develop largerquestions about the current practice of annotation in Shakespeare editionsand to sketch some propositions about how certain problems might beaddressed.