If only Shakespeare would wake up and show the way. The literary world, it seems, is in a tizzy, trying to find out the Bard’s real works amidst all the versions floating around. Now, the latest revision of Shakespeare’s editions - the elaborately-named ‘RSC Shakespeare Complete Works’ claims that there are significant changes made to Shakespeare’s actors as well as major themes of his plays.

Among the more interesting changes in the ‘Works,’ is the premise that Lady Macbeth, for so long reviled in the literary world, may not be so vindictive, after all. According to The Peninsula, Lady Macbeth loses her title in the new edition, and is simply known as the wife of Macbeth. Readers might well wonder at the confusion. Surely, isn’t there one text that could solve Shakespeare’s mysteries once and for all? Sadly, there isn’t. Most of the recent editions to the Bard’s plays stake their claim from two versions - known in literature as the Quarto and the Folio. The Quarto, it is believed, is not so reliable, consisting as it did of a number of pirated versions of Shakespeare’s works.

The new Works claims that they use Shakespeare’s First Folio of 1623, which is the version that was used by the famed writer’s actors: John Hemings and Henry Condell. Newer interpretations in the Works present a more brutalized and harsher tone in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ and old King Lear was not worried about the loss of his kingdom but his own old age. Othello, often portrayed as a narcissist, is shown to have a more tender side when he expresses horror at killing his wife. In the end, with this new edition Shakespeare scholars will find that they might have to reconsider centuries-old theories and theses on the writer’s greatest works.

Via: The Peninsula, Playfuls