Mediating for Immediacy: Text, Performance, and Dramaturgy in Multimedia Shakespeare Editions

This dissertation examines digital multimedia Shakespeare editions, a group of seven projects that combine a complete Shakespeare text (plays or poetry) with a complete performance recording (audio or video). I argue that these projects constitute a new form of edition, which uses performance to engage new users and to supplement users’ understanding of Shakespeare’s text. By placing text and performance as congruent and contiguous elements in a digital interface, these projects transpose performance into the experiential framework of reading, enabling users to set their own pace and direction, and to navigate between reading and spectating. Through its multimedial format, this emerging category also expands the responsibilities of the editor or editorial team, shifting their role from a focus on text to include dramaturgy, pedagogy, and digital design. While these projects do make Shakespeare’s works accessible in new ways, they also reinforce existing narratives, in particular the tendency to regard Shakespeare’s text as dense and alienating while viewing performance as transparent and engaging. The aim of this dissertation is to explore the intellectual and aesthetic frameworks underlying these projects, as well as to articulate some critiques and possibilities for future development. My goal is to propose a set of guidelines for an editorial apparatus that would govern an edition that comprises not only text, but also performance and digital design.Ph.D