8-5FirstFolio

What is the first folio and why is it important? //Answer prepared by: John S// Seven years after Shakespeare died the //First Folio// was published by his fellow actors in London. “It contained 36 of Shakespeare’s plays, it was more than 900 pages long and about 1,000 copies were printed. It had the width of a modern encyclopedia and is about three inches thicker,” says Encyclopedia Britannica. There was nothing else quite like it that was made before. “The folio format was usually reserved for works of reference and for the collected writings of important authors,” says Folger Shakespeare Library. “Plays written for the public theaters, however, were generally viewed as fairly trivial works of popular entertainment, unworthy of serious consideration as literature.” This really just means that usually normal plays weren’t written in folio format. It was usually used for reference books such as today’s almanac or dictionary. Or it is used for authors that are extremely important. During his time, Shakespeare was popular, but not as popular as he is now. Of the plays now accepted as either wholly or partly by Shakespeare, eighteen have survived only because the First Folio was published. It is hardly surprising that the First Folio has been called “incomparably the most important work in the English language,” say many historians. The front cover of the First Folio displayed a copper engraved image of Shakespeare by the engraver Martin Droeshout. It must be remembered that during William Shakespeare's era that only engravings could be used to illustrate such documents. It was impossible to copy portraits. Many historians have debated over this engraving. Some state that it does not represent the way Shakespeare really looked. And others suggest that why would his fellow actors choose a portrait that does not resemble the way Shakespeare looked? Maybe that is the way he really did look. Since we do not have very many paintings of Shakespeare, it is hard to determine what William Shakespeare really looked like. And we may never really know. Works Cited " First Folio ." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 16 Apr. 2009 < [] Blayney, Peter. "The First Folio of Shakespeare." //Folger Shakespeare Library//. 1991. Folger Library Publications. Web.16 Apr 2009. .