Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Introduction: Local/Global ShakespeareShakespeare, alias the Bard of Avon, is the poet and playwright of the English Renaissance, but we sense that he is still now alive around the globe.He is accepted by the non-English-speaking people, and his drama and poetry are translated into a lot of different languages, adapted, performed and appropriated in many corners of the world.Therefore, he is not only the possession of the West but that of the East.In other words, he is a cultural icon traveling the globe, as well as a national hero in England.The First Folio, the earliest edition of Shakespeare's plays, is the world's most famous book.The year 2023 was our 400 th anniversary of the first edition of the First Folio which was entered into the Stationers' Register on November 8 in 1623.When it was displayed at the Guildhall Library in London only one day on April 24 in 2023, a long line of people were waiting to see it.Moreover, an original copy of the First Folio known as the Ashburnham Folio was exhibited at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon from April to November.Furthermore, the Senate House Library in London digitized the First Folios, the Durning-Lawrence copy and the Sterling Library copy so that these digital copies may allow scholars to consult the Folios remotely.The First Folio was produced by John Heminges and Henry Condell, Shakespeare's friends and fellow actors in the King's Men.The volume contained 36 plays, half of which had not been published before.Without the First Folio, we could not have read some of the masterpieces we read today.In 1623, there were probably more than 750 copies printed, and each copy was offered for sale at a price of 1 pound.They say that only 233 copies are extant now, but each copy is excessively expensive.I hear a copy of the First Folio was sold at auction in New York for 9,970,000 dollars in October, 2020.Probably the price is the highest in the history of literary works.
Author: Yoshiko Kawachi
Institution: Kyorin University
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4407350142