I don’t care about the Internet. I still look up definitions in my battered old dictionary which I’ve been lugging around the country for decades.
Bartlett’s is also essential.
I bought The First Folio of Shakespeare 1623
(printed in facsimile) in grad school: my great classics teacher Doug Moston edited it. Incidentally, Doug’s dad – Murray Moston – was the dude in Taxi Driver who got his hand blown off by Travis Bickle in the final showdown in the whorehouse hallway. Harvey Keitel and Doug Moston were best friends and Keitel would often crash at the Moston house. Murray Moston ran a cutthroat poker game for his actor friends. “They called him Midtown Murray,” Doug told us. He was one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had. (Post about him here.) I used the Folio all the time when I was acting because editors often smooth out Shakespeare’s punctuation – or modernize it – or, even worse – add exclamation marks !!!! – which totally changed a line. (I go into that here, comparing/contrasting The Folio and a modern edition.) Actors are SO sensitive to punctuation. Actors read punctuation like musicians read music. If there’s an exclamation mark it tells you how to say a line.
Ah, Riverside Shakespeare. Dog-eared, marked-up, beloved. I bought it in college. It was an investment that has more than paid off. It’s filled with notes from college acting classes. Plus I taped an autumn leaf into the back cover decades ago. I don’t remember why but it must have been important at the time.
I have the EXACT SAME Riverside Shakespeare. It was required for one of my college classes.
Regarding Shakespeare’s punctuation, as an English teacher (who prefers talking about literature but who also appreciates and understands grammar), punctuation is important. People nowadays seem to denigrate grammar, as if it’s optional or unimportant, not recognizing its significance. Everyone should be concerned with CLEAR communication; otherwise we head towards the world of 1984 where words are meaningless. (P.S. I just had to say this somewhere: I work at a school, and this week heard a coworker say “has rang” and “laying on the floor.” Arggghhhh!!!!!!)
The Riverside is a gorgeous volume – I’m so glad I shelled out the money for it even though I was a broke college student.
In terms of punctuation – I can’t tell you what a revelation it was to learn about the differences between the Folio and the modern editors’ versions. Especially for actors who are really sensitive to text. If there’s an ellipses, they’ll pause. If there’s an exclamation mark it’s hard to UN-see it and try another interpretation.
I admit to getting confused by laying/lying. Can you boil it down for me?