Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Importance of Compositorial Error and Variation to the Emendation of Shakespeare’s Texts: A Bibliographic Analysis of Benson’s 1640 Text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

The Importance of Compositorial Error and Variation to the Emendation of Shakespeare’s Texts: A... by Carl D. Atkins N1640,JohnBensonpublishedanoctavovolumewiththemisleadingtitle,"Poems:WrittenbyWil.Shake-speare.Gent."Thetextis based onWilliam Jaggard's third edition of The Passionate Pilgrim (1612),ThomasThorpe's 1609 quarto of Shakespeare's Sonnets and A Lovers Complaint(hereinafterreferredtoastheQuarto),andThe Phoenix and the Turtle(1601).Benson'stextprintstheentirecontentsofThe Passionate Pilgrim (which itself borrowed heavily from Thomas Heywood'sTroia Brittanica,arousingconsiderableindignationfromthatauthor),includingtheversionsofSonnets138and144containedtherein, and 144 of the remaining sonnets from the Quarto, omitting eight. It alsoincludesanadditionalverseomittedfrompoem19ofThe Passionate Pilgim, which occurs in the longer version contained in England's Helicon(1600),aswellasanumberofpoemsbyotherauthors,notall identified. IhaveexaminedBenson'stextfromtheFurnessCollectionoftheSchoenbergCenter forElectronicTextandImagefromtheDeweyLibraryoftheUniversityofPennsylvania (http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/furness). Occasional characters incompletely reproducedduetotightbindinghavebeenkindlyverifiedformebyDanielTraister,Curator,AnnenbergRareBookandManuscriptLibrary,VanPelt­DietrichLibrary,University ofPennsylvania. SeethethoroughdiscussioninHyderEdwardRollins,ed.,The Passionate Pilgrim,by WilliamShakespeare(NewYork:Scribner's,1940),ix­xl. 306 ©2007TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress Carl D. Atkins Althoughsomegroupsofsonnetsoccursuccessivelyinbothtexts,the orderofthesonnetsinBensondiffersgreatlyfromthatintheQuarto, and poems from The Passionate Pilgrim are interspersed throughout them.Bensonalsoaddstitlestogroupsofsonnets,orsometimesindividual ones,often withlittle relation tothe subjectmatter.Groups of sonnets underone title are printed without separation. Although the coupletsareconsistentlyindented,thelayoutofthetextgivestheappearancethatsuchgroupscomprisesinglepoems,despitethefactthat thesenseusuallydoesnotallowthemtobereadassuch.Benson'stitles sometimesusethefemalegenderwherenoneisspecifiedintheensuing sonnets,andmalepronounsarealteredtofemalepronounsinafewsonnets(seebelow).ManycommentatorsassumethatBensonwastrying tohidethepresumablyindelicatefactthatmostofthesonnetsappear tobewrittentoamaleaddressee.However,friendshipisprominent inBenson'stitles,andmanymalepronounsareallowedtostand.The disarrangementofthetextsuggestsadifferentmotive.Bensonneeded tohideboththefactthathistextwaspiratedandthatthemajorityofthe poemswerepartofasonnetsequence.By1609,sonnetsequenceswere alreadyoutofvogue,andonlyoneeditionoftheQuartowasprinted. The Passionate Pilgrim,ontheotherhand,hadthreeeditions,afactnot likelytobeoverlookedbyanenterprisingprinter. Benson'stextisimportantfortworeasons.First,itwasthebasisfor latereditionsofShakespeare'sSonnetsfromCharlesGildon'sin1710to ThomasEvans'sin1775(excludingBernardLintott'sin1711).Edmond Malone,in1780,wasthefirsteditortoreturntotheQuartoastheauthentictextoftheSonnets.Second,knowingthecopy-textsonwhichit isbasedallowsustoexamineindetailtheextenttowhichthecompositoraffectedthetransmissionofthetext,fromwhichwemaymakesome cautiousgeneralizationsaboutearly-seventeenth-centurycomposition. IwillrestrictmycommentstoacomparisonbetweentheQuartoand the144sonnetsinBensontakentherefrom.TheAppendixlistsallof SeeMargretadeGrazia'scritiqueofthisideain"TheScandalofShakespeare'sSonnets,"Shakespeare Survey46(1994):35­49. Inhisedition,JohnDoverWilsonnotesthatDrayton'ssequence,Ideas, Mirror,was reprintedthreetimesafter1609(The Sonnets[Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1966], xli). He suggests that no new editions of the Quarto were published because it wasunauthorizedandsuppressedbytheauthorities.However,nonewsonnetsequences werepublishedafterthe1590s,andevenifWilsonwerecorrect,theneedforBensonto disguisethesourceofhistextwouldonlybegreater. SeeRollins,ed.,A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets,2vols.(Philadelphia:J.P.Lippincott,1944),2:36­41. Ibid.,2:113­16. A Bibliographic Analysis the759variantsbetweenthetwotexts,excludingthechangesintypographicalconventionwherebytheuseof"i"for"j,"initial"v"for"u," andmedial"u"for"v"intheQuartoarenotfollowedinBenson(the compositormaintainstheseconventionsforcapitallettersbutisotherwise faithful in this regard, with the exception of theword "prou'd" inSonnet110and"proue"inthethirdpoeminThe Passionate Pilgrim, wherehefailstochangethe"u"toa"v"). Benson's compositor recognized and corrected almost all of the twenty-seven obvious misprints contained in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Philology University of North Carolina Press

The Importance of Compositorial Error and Variation to the Emendation of Shakespeare’s Texts: A Bibliographic Analysis of Benson’s 1640 Text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Atkins, Carl D.
Studies in Philology , Volume 104 (3) – Jul 30, 2007
Download PDF
35 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/the-importance-of-compositorial-error-and-variation-to-the-emendation-UGRkRArMy3

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by The University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1543-0383
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

by Carl D. Atkins N1640,JohnBensonpublishedanoctavovolumewiththemisleadingtitle,"Poems:WrittenbyWil.Shake-speare.Gent."Thetextis based onWilliam Jaggard's third edition of The Passionate Pilgrim (1612),ThomasThorpe's 1609 quarto of Shakespeare's Sonnets and A Lovers Complaint(hereinafterreferredtoastheQuarto),andThe Phoenix and the Turtle(1601).Benson'stextprintstheentirecontentsofThe Passionate Pilgrim (which itself borrowed heavily from Thomas Heywood'sTroia Brittanica,arousingconsiderableindignationfromthatauthor),includingtheversionsofSonnets138and144containedtherein, and 144 of the remaining sonnets from the Quarto, omitting eight. It alsoincludesanadditionalverseomittedfrompoem19ofThe Passionate Pilgim, which occurs in the longer version contained in England's Helicon(1600),aswellasanumberofpoemsbyotherauthors,notall identified. IhaveexaminedBenson'stextfromtheFurnessCollectionoftheSchoenbergCenter forElectronicTextandImagefromtheDeweyLibraryoftheUniversityofPennsylvania (http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/furness). Occasional characters incompletely reproducedduetotightbindinghavebeenkindlyverifiedformebyDanielTraister,Curator,AnnenbergRareBookandManuscriptLibrary,VanPelt­DietrichLibrary,University ofPennsylvania. SeethethoroughdiscussioninHyderEdwardRollins,ed.,The Passionate Pilgrim,by WilliamShakespeare(NewYork:Scribner's,1940),ix­xl. 306 ©2007TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress Carl D. Atkins Althoughsomegroupsofsonnetsoccursuccessivelyinbothtexts,the orderofthesonnetsinBensondiffersgreatlyfromthatintheQuarto, and poems from The Passionate Pilgrim are interspersed throughout them.Bensonalsoaddstitlestogroupsofsonnets,orsometimesindividual ones,often withlittle relation tothe subjectmatter.Groups of sonnets underone title are printed without separation. Although the coupletsareconsistentlyindented,thelayoutofthetextgivestheappearancethatsuchgroupscomprisesinglepoems,despitethefactthat thesenseusuallydoesnotallowthemtobereadassuch.Benson'stitles sometimesusethefemalegenderwherenoneisspecifiedintheensuing sonnets,andmalepronounsarealteredtofemalepronounsinafewsonnets(seebelow).ManycommentatorsassumethatBensonwastrying tohidethepresumablyindelicatefactthatmostofthesonnetsappear tobewrittentoamaleaddressee.However,friendshipisprominent inBenson'stitles,andmanymalepronounsareallowedtostand.The disarrangementofthetextsuggestsadifferentmotive.Bensonneeded tohideboththefactthathistextwaspiratedandthatthemajorityofthe poemswerepartofasonnetsequence.By1609,sonnetsequenceswere alreadyoutofvogue,andonlyoneeditionoftheQuartowasprinted. The Passionate Pilgrim,ontheotherhand,hadthreeeditions,afactnot likelytobeoverlookedbyanenterprisingprinter. Benson'stextisimportantfortworeasons.First,itwasthebasisfor latereditionsofShakespeare'sSonnetsfromCharlesGildon'sin1710to ThomasEvans'sin1775(excludingBernardLintott'sin1711).Edmond Malone,in1780,wasthefirsteditortoreturntotheQuartoastheauthentictextoftheSonnets.Second,knowingthecopy-textsonwhichit isbasedallowsustoexamineindetailtheextenttowhichthecompositoraffectedthetransmissionofthetext,fromwhichwemaymakesome cautiousgeneralizationsaboutearly-seventeenth-centurycomposition. IwillrestrictmycommentstoacomparisonbetweentheQuartoand the144sonnetsinBensontakentherefrom.TheAppendixlistsallof SeeMargretadeGrazia'scritiqueofthisideain"TheScandalofShakespeare'sSonnets,"Shakespeare Survey46(1994):35­49. Inhisedition,JohnDoverWilsonnotesthatDrayton'ssequence,Ideas, Mirror,was reprintedthreetimesafter1609(The Sonnets[Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1966], xli). He suggests that no new editions of the Quarto were published because it wasunauthorizedandsuppressedbytheauthorities.However,nonewsonnetsequences werepublishedafterthe1590s,andevenifWilsonwerecorrect,theneedforBensonto disguisethesourceofhistextwouldonlybegreater. SeeRollins,ed.,A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets,2vols.(Philadelphia:J.P.Lippincott,1944),2:36­41. Ibid.,2:113­16. A Bibliographic Analysis the759variantsbetweenthetwotexts,excludingthechangesintypographicalconventionwherebytheuseof"i"for"j,"initial"v"for"u," andmedial"u"for"v"intheQuartoarenotfollowedinBenson(the compositormaintainstheseconventionsforcapitallettersbutisotherwise faithful in this regard, with the exception of theword "prou'd" inSonnet110and"proue"inthethirdpoeminThe Passionate Pilgrim, wherehefailstochangethe"u"toa"v"). Benson's compositor recognized and corrected almost all of the twenty-seven obvious misprints contained in

Journal

Studies in Philology – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jul 30, 2007

There are no references for this article.