ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that William Poel's reading of Wallenstein was coloured in a number of ways, and that his specifically dramaturgical decisions in adapting the dramas for a one night stand are all of a piece with this reading. Poel's is a famous name in theatrical history. The Quartos were preferable to the Folio as acting texts just because they were closer to the plays as originally performed. To start with, the text used already pointed him in a Shakespearean direction. Poel extends this linguistic shakespeareanising radically to structure. Poel also reduces the scope of the Countess's rhetoric considerably: she simply completes the action, but without any delaying verbal ado. Poel's view of Adult Education, on the other hand, was closer to making the ideal of Bildung, of self-cultivation, widely available beyond the confines of the high bourgeoisie. Poel might just have taken the opportunity to give his spear-carriers something more to do.
