De-composition in Popular Elizabethan Playtexts: A Revalidation of the Multiple Versions of <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> and <i>Hamlet</i>

The aim of this article is to establish some premises for comparing the transmission of playtexts of the early modern stage with the transmission of folk material. My central question is whether playtexts and ballad and tale texts "de-compose" in similar ways, and, if they do, whether we may then predict a similar "goal product" that can only be achieved through transmission. The detailed comparison of traditionalized ballads and Elizabethan playtexts is still a relatively uncharted field of inquiry, and this article thus simultaneously revisits and supplements the few observations published in this field so far.