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Free as in Shakespeare

2006.02.18

Guest post by Mahangu Weerasinghe

It’s just after four am, and I’m taking a little breather to really wake up before I hit the books. My freshman finals are coming up, and one of the harder exams I’ll be sitting for this month is Elizabethan Drama. For this course, we studied five plays - one Marlowe, four Shakespeare.

One major problem I came across while preparing for this paper is the lack of reputed sources. Apart from a few lectures by Bradley and Hazlitt at Gutenberg, there is very little else out there.

Of course, there are many, many sites that offer notes on the plays, and although these are useful, one can’t really use them since, at this level of English, you are expected to cite your sources with page numbers, even after examination questions.

The sad thing is that, out of so many recognised scholars, it is possible only to find the work of two available freely online. Many of these gentlemen have long since passed away, and their work should have passed in to the public domain.

No doubt, all these critics have benefactors or associations somewhere, who are re-printing their work and making a good deal of money off them. Really, I have no problem with that. My problem arises when I can’t find any of these re-prints.

Did I check in local libraries? Yes, and to no avail. It’s pretty difficult to compete with a whole batch of English students for one or two copies of a book. Often, many of these works are missing anyway - removed years earlier by some ungrad who loved the language too much to let go. :)

Unlike maths or physics, in a course like Elizabethan Drama, there are no text books. It all boils down to what you find, and this in turn, often comes down to chance.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
- Julius Caesar, Act I, sc. ii (139 - 141) - Cassius

Call me utopian, but I believe that knowledge as ancient, and as widely used as this should be made, at least in part, freely available. Adams, Boas, Coleridge - where are ye?

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