Bourus edits first of two Shakespeare texts
May 25, 2006
KOKOMO, Ind.—Indiana University Kokomo Assistant Professor of English Terri Bourus, Ph.D., now has ample opportunities to use her doctorate in Shakespearean Textual Studies as one of the editors for the Sourcebooks Shakespeare Series, part of their new Media Fusion project. Her first edition of Shakespeare’s comedy
A Midsummer Night’s Dream will soon be on the shelves of U.S. and United Kingdom bookstores such as Borders, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.
Sourcebooks, Inc., of Naperville, Ill., contracted Bourus to edit A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Using the first quarto—an early version of the play published in 1600—as her copy-text, Bourus modernized some spellings and altered some words that are either no longer in use or have changed their meanings, in order to help today’s readers understand the early modern English of Shakespeare. After editing the text, Bourus wrote an introduction and a history of the play in performance on stage and in film. She also selected performance photos reprinted in the book, working with valuable archive shots on loan from theatres and major movie studios.
Passages from noted performances can be heard on an accompanying CD, narrated by noted British actor Sir Derek Jacobi. David Bevington of the University of Chicago and Peter Holland of the University of Notre Dame are the series’ advisory editors. Holland spoke at IU Kokomo in February in conjunction with the visit by Actors From The London Stage. Esteemed Shakespearean scholars Holland and Douglas Lanier contributed essays to the text as well.
The book/CD package is part of a series of such works published by Sourcebooks, Inc. to “bring the stage to the page,” Bourus said. “The goal is to adapt Shakespeare to the performance conditions of the 20th and 21st centuries.”
Bourus is now working on her second Shakespeare text for Sourcebooks, Hamlet, with a planned release of November 2006. Kenneth Branagh, who directed and starred in an acclaimed 1996 film version of Hamlet, will narrate that text’s CD.
Bourus has been invited to speak at the World Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane, Australia, in July. She will present her most recent research on editing Shakespeare in the “brave new world” of Shakespearean Media and Modern Technology.
