Lost, or Rather Surviving as a Very Short Document

Abstract

Defined, like the unconscious or UFOs, by the defeating fact of their unknowability, “lost plays” would seem to be inherently unpromising objects of study. Most engagements with them have tended to focus mainly on the mere fact of their incompleteness: either by lamenting the lacunae in our knowledge that they represent, or by thinking in terms of the possibility of recovering play manuscripts. Such manuscripts are sought both by conventional research methods, such as those described in other chapters in this book by William Proctor Williams and Martin Wiggins, and in the imaginative methodology of Shakespeare thrillers, where entire copies of “Cardenio” and/or “Love’s Labour’s Won”, preserved usually in some form of subterranean vault, are frequent objects of desire and pursuit. Indeed, the state of knowledge is incomplete; and indeed, archival finds would be wonderful; but scholars interested in early modern theatre must accept that to get the most out of the material they do have, they will frequently be working with plays which are, and remain, lost. How do we theorize this problem?