Content

The side navigation bar opens by default to the Content pane, which contains the table of contents for the HMTL page that you are on. If you are looking at a modern edition, it will list all of the scenes and allow you to navigate directly to any scene of interest. In addition, you can access the character list for the play by clicking on Characters. The character list will appear on the right side of the page. Editorial notes about characters are indicated by a plus sign to the left of the character’s name. Click the plus sign to see the note. The plus sign will turn into a minus sign when you do this; click the minus sign to hide the note.

Credits

The Credits tab provides information about all of the key contributors to the work visible on and underlying each of the HTML pages.

Tools

When you are viewing modern editions, you can choose to turn annotation and collation indicators on or off by selecting the Tools menu in the side navigation bar. Click the checkbox beside Display annotations, Display collations, or both to turn annotation and collation indicators on and off. They will both, by default, be on when you first open any modern text. For more information about how to use our annotations and collations, see and .

About

The About menu gives you access to metadata for each page (title, publisher, author, etc.) and allows you to see the open-access XML markup that underlies each HTML page.

Performance Editions and Production Records

Navigation bar from the QME website with drop down buttons for About, Performance Editions, Production Records, and Contexts

The Performance Editions and Production Records menu items on the top navigation bar of this website provide two primary ways to access the Queen’s Men plays on this site. The Performance Editions menu opens a wide range of resources. Here you will find old-spelling texts and modernized texts of the plays integrated with the production records. The performance editions include introductions, supplementary materials, and the commentary written by the textual and performance editors.

Production Records takes you directly to video of the research productions of the plays. Taking this route, you can choose to watch the play in performance first and read the playtext later.

If you wish to read the text without commentary and without viewing the production videos, open the modernized text in the Performance Edition, and access the Tools menu in the side navigation bar to turn off annotations and collations (see ). Alternatively, read the old-spelling text, a transcription of the playtext as it was first published in book format.

Introductions

Each of our published editions has a general introduction providing an overview of the play. In a separate textual introduction, the editor of each play sets out the bibliographical history of the text. These introductions are particular to the play in question, but they often gesture to other plays to draw connections and encourage further reading.

You can find these text-specific introductions on each play’s edition page, which are linked from our list of published editions.

Modernized Texts

To read a modern text of a play, navigate to that play’s edition landing page, which you can find by clicking on the dropdown menu for Performance Editions and selecting the play that you are interested in. Doing so will bring you to the edition’s landing page. You can also navigate to the edition landing pages from our list of published editions. You will find the modern text in the section.

The literary divisions used in modern texts for this anthology are scenes and speeches. Each scene and speech in our published modern texts has a stable URL, which you can find by clicking the scene or speech number in the left margin of the modern text Site page. You can also navigate to scenes by opening the menu at the top-left of the page, selecting Content, and clicking on the scene to which you want to navigate.

The modernized texts on this site include our editors’ annotations and collations, which are accessed through clickable links.

Annotations

Editors have added annotations to the modern-spelling editions of each play.

In QME there are two types of notes—textual notes and performance notes. Textual notes may include: Glosses (notes that give a short description of a term). Commentary (discussion of the meaning of the text). Textual notes (notes about editorial decisions). Pedagogical notes (notes offering teaching tips and strategies). Lexical notes (discussion of the etymology, meaning, and/or prevalence of a word). Lineation notes (discussion of lineation and related editorial decisions). Performance notes may include discussion of the choices made in the research production of the plays, such as: Character choices by the actors. Blocking (the arrangement of characters on the stage). The production’s research on the staging practices of the Queen’s Men. Commentary on the process and staging in relation to the politics of Elizabethan England and our modern politics. Interpretive choices made in relation to stage directions present or absent in the texts.

Annotations on a string of text that is one full verse line long or longer are indicated by vertical lines to the left of the text. Click on the vertical line to view the annotation. Annotations on a string of text that are shorter than one verse line are indicated by horizontal underlines. Click on the annotated text or the underline to view the annotation. Spans of text with more than one annotation on them are indicated with a double underline. Click on the annotated text or the double underline to view all annotations on that string of text. Annotations will appear in a window on the right side of the page.

Collation

A collation is indicated by a small red symbol with diverging arrows inside of a circle. (A collation is a record of how the text differs across copies and has changed over time.) Click on this symbol and the collation details will appear on the right side of the page.

Old-Spelling Texts

Old-spelling texts are transcribed versions of early modern playbooks. We recommend juxtaposing modern and old-spelling texts in the classroom for lessons on editorial practice, book history, and bibliography.

The divisions used for old-spelling texts in this anthology are pages and speeches, which correspond with page divisions and speeches in the witnesses (i.e., sources) used for each edition. Each page and speech has a stable URL. You can navigate to pages by opening the menu at the top-left of the page, selecting Content, and clicking on the editorial signature number for the page to which you want to navigate.

You can also find facsimile images of the transcribed text some old-spelling texts. To view full-sized facsimile images, click on the thumbnail image beside each page beginning in the text.