This chapter explores Hamlet's infamous dirty joke in light of the Q1 manuscript. 

In a recent post about Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus's article "Surface Reading," I suggested that the history of a text's reception could constitute a surface-reading practice. Here, I want to take up my promise to discuss the affinities between reception history and one of the modes of reading that Best and Marcus do include: genre criticism.

I recently, albeit somewhat belatedly, read Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus's 2009 article "Surface Reading: An Introduction" which opens their special issue of Representations on "The Way We Read Now."