{"id":1013,"date":"2021-03-11T14:14:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-11T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/folio400.com\/?post_type=phernalia&p=1013"},"modified":"2021-06-04T14:27:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T13:27:20","slug":"sounding-the-first-folio","status":"publish","type":"phernalia","link":"https:\/\/folio400.com\/phernalia\/sounding-the-first-folio\/","title":{"rendered":"Sounding the First Folio"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Professor <\/strong>David Crystal<\/h4>

While directors of Shakespeare plays can use any edition they want, when it comes to mounting a performance in original pronunciation (OP) it makes sense to look to the First Folio as a source of inspiration. This is what Giles Block did, for Troilus and Cressida<\/i> at Shakespeare\u2019s Globe in 2005 \u2013 the theatre\u2019s second such initiative, following the OP production of Romeo and Juliet<\/i> the previous year \u2013 and several other OP productions have followed suit. Practitioners who laud the Folio do so because they feel it brings them as close as possible to Shakespeare and his fellow actors, notwithstanding the typographical infelicities that have to be taken into account. And in a year when the Folio is being justly celebrated as a printed text, with all the distinctive orthographic features that form part of its appeal, it feels right to spend a little time presenting that text as it could have sounded to those who compiled it.<\/span><\/p>

You will notice the word \u2018could\u2019. Any reconstruction of an earlier period of pronunciation in a language is a tentative business. I never talk about authenticity, only of plausibility. It is the same with reconstructions of earlier theatres: nobody could sensibly say that the present-day Globes and Blackfriars are \u2018authentic\u2019, when aeroplanes are flying overhead and the theatres contain modern safety and toiletting facilities. But, in their contrast with present-day theatres, they offer audiences the chance to recreate the kind of theatrical experience that their Elizabethan counterparts would have had. Historical linguists interested in using their discipline to illuminate Elizabethan dramaturgy have a similar aim.<\/span><\/p>

In the absence of audio recordings, only available for English from the end of the 19th century, explorations of OP have to rely on various kinds of written evidence. In the case of Shakespeare, this consists mainly of rhymes, spellings, puns, and observations about pronunciation made by contemporary writers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u2013 By rhymes, I mean couplets that do not match in modern English, but are likely to have done so in Elizabethan times, such as these, in the Folio text of the closing lines of The Taming of the Shrew<\/i>:<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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