 | |  |
Compositor Determination and other
Problems in Shakespearian Texts
by
Alice Walker
[*]
My aim in this paper is to suggest what purposes compositor determination may serve and, in view of these purposes, on what basis the analysis should be made. The focus will be on the thirty years or so in which our substantive texts of Shakespeare's plays were printed; but although the focus is on Shakespeare the matter is of interest to all concerned with printed books of the period, whether as bibliographers or editors.
Very little is known about printing-house spelling. A philologist can, of course, relate spelling to the derivation of a word and to the sound changes, or other influences, which at one time or another have affected it. He knows why variant spellings like 'blood' and 'bloud' originated; but he does not know what their distribution is in this period. The O.E.D. is, of course, the main authority on the spelling of printed books; but although it gives a good general conspectus (though not always a complete record) or the range of spellings for a particular word, and although it sheds a great deal of light on what lies behind anomalies in modern spelling, it was no part of its programme to treat the subject either comprehensively or systematically: it is a history of the meaning of words, not their form. Thus, to take a simple example, it explains the origin of the spellings 'show' and 'shew' and remarks that the two spellings reflected different pronunciations originating in the Old English period and surviving (on the evidence of rhymes) down to about 1700; it observes that the 'shew' spelling was prevalent in the eighteenth century and not uncommon in the first half of the nineteenth century; but it sheds no light on the distribution of these two spellings in Shakespeare's day or on the distribution of the longer forms with a final 'e'. We cannot even be certain that the O.E.D. extracts from this period (however numerous they may
It is not, of course, surprising that no effort has been made to study the spelling of Elizabethan and Jacobean books systematically. This is partly because the view has been widely held that it was chaotic and, now that it is recognised that there was certainly method in its seeming vagaries and that investigation must proceed on the basis of compositors, it is clear that little good might have come of a survey even if it had been made. The natural line of attack in the past would have been chronological, by printers or by authors, and might therefore have failed to penetrate to the compositor-basis which is of prime importance. The subject has, anyway, not roused much interest. The phonologist recognises that it was mainly conventional spelling and out of touch with the spoken word. Consequently, it can tell him little about the pronunciation of Shakespeare's day. His attention is focused on the 'phonetic' spellings of uninstructed writers and, therefore, on manuscript spellings — and the naiver the writer, the better for his purpose. From a phonological point of view John of Bordeaux is far more exciting than the First Folio or even Sir Thomas More D . Among textual critics, though wiser heads have never supposed that the spelling of printed books was the author's (the Old Cambridge editors, for instance, rejected the idea of an old spelling Shakespeare on this account), there is even yet a great deal of muddled thinking. Spellings of one writer are compared with those of another on the evidence of printed texts of different dates from different printing houses[1] and the vagaries of compositors are being erratically introduced into modernised texts of Shakespeare.[2] A systematic study of printing-house spelling is plainly wanted, if only to act as a curb on this kind of folly.
Unfortunately, Willoughby's interpretation of Satchell's observations on spellings in Macbeth was not at once followed up, but Hinman's reopening of the matter has stimulated keener interest. This is partly, no doubt, because of the close link between compositor-analysis and presswork, but partly too because it is now recognised that an analysis of the spelling of printed texts can shed a great deal of light on what has been the focal point of twentieth-century Shakespearian textual criticism — the problem of transmission; and that we know all too little about the stage in the transmission of substantive texts about which we could know most — their metamorphosis into print — is now, I think, generally recognised. The study of the ways of compositors should enable us to isolate with some confidence not only the accidentals of printed texts which were not due to copy but also (even more important) the substantive errors of compositors.
The main purpose of compositor-determination as I see it is, therefore, to clarify a stage in transmission about which we know very little and ought to know more. But we shall be neglecting a great many important ramifications if the enquiry results in no more than a short list of words which serve to distinguish the hand of one compositor from another. This kind of rigidity is at variance with the fundamental characteristic of printing-house spelling — its fluidity — nd the treatment of the subject should partake of its character. Some habits of compositors were fixed (at any rate over a period of years) and these fixed habits included not only spellings which serve to differentiate between the hand of one compositor and a fellow-workman but also spellings which serve to bind. From The Merchant of Venice Q1 , Titus Andronicus Q2 , and Hamlet Q2 , for instance, it would appear that both of Roberts's compositors were 'doe', 'goe', 'heere', 'young', 'blood', 'devill', and 'yeere' spellers. At the same time, spellings common to a pair of compositors (or peculiar to one) were liable to alter, either temporarily (under the influence of copy) or more permanently (possibly in response to changing fashions). We cannot even treat the First Folio as a unit. My own differential spellings have special reference to the plays printed in 1623 Many of them (and certainly most of A's) are
Changes such as are apparent in the Folio are not, of course, exceptional. What serves to differentiate between two Danter compositors in 1593 is partly obsolete in 1594 What serves to discriminate between Roberts's two compositors in The Merchant of Venice 1600 is in some cases irrelevant to Hamlet 1604-1605 A pair of compositors might draw together over some spellings but apart over others, and how often their spelling changed in one particular or another is of as much importance as their fixed habits.
My expectation is that, if a study of printing-house spelling could be made on a broad basis, including not merely what serves to distinguish between one compositor and another but also what serves to unify, as well as what is variable and what is fixed, we should have an instructive and serviceable conspectus of use to bibliographers and editors alike.
For the analytical bibliographer, compositor-determination is plainly an important link with press-work and there is no need for me to enlarge upon the way in which the one kind of analysis is complementary to the other. As regards another field of bibliographical work, fuller information about compositors, if broadly based, should serve to identify printers, where other means fail, and to date (at any rate approximately) undated books and cancels. There are, for instance, a number of plays in Greg's Bibliography whose printers are either unknown or doubtful. These may have been written off as Lost Property merely because no one has had occasion to use them. They may even have been under scrutiny since the Bibliography was published. But assuming they have not yet been assigned to a particular printer, I judge that anyone acquainted with the spelling of
Reprints are, of course, a trickier problem than first editions, since we must expect the trail to be confused by the spellings of the print used as copy. Roberts's reprint of Titus Andronicus certainly gives a much distorted picture of the habits of the compositors who set it and suggests that it may be little use to try to arrive at a compositor's normal practice from a reprint. This is, I judge, what makes it difficult to identify the compositor (or compositors) responsible for the Folio texts of Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet . The spelling is mixed not because the compositor was a 'mixed' speller but because these texts (especially the latter) were hurried and careless reprints.[3] By far the most systematic spelling in the Folio Histories and Tragedies , on the part of both Jaggard A and B, occurs in plays which were certainly set up from manuscript. In 1 Henry VI , Julius Caesar , and Macbeth , for instance, spellings which fail to conform with the normal habits of the two compositors are strikingly rare.
But although I suspect that reprints will seldom provide a safe- guide to a compositor's usual habits, the contamination from an earlier print that we should expect to find can be turned to advantage. I feel certain that, if a copy of Titus Q1 had never come to light, an analysis of the habits of Roberts's compositors when working from manuscript would have made it clear that the spelling of the 1600 quarto was too mixed to be that of a first edition and a legitimate inference would have been that some characteristic Roberts habits had been superimposed on an earlier print with 'here', 'yeare' and final ' — icke' spellings. It is easy, of course, to be wise after the event; but what can be established on the basis of this reprint and some Jaggard reprints might be applied to other texts which may be reprints of a lost predecessor. Is, for instance, the spelling of Love's Labour's Lost Q1 fully typical of White? What about The Spanish Tragedy (Greg, No. 110), Edward II (No. 129), David and Bethsabe (No. 160)?
The need to know all we can about compositors' habits is manifestly of considerable importance to an editor. I do not for a moment suppose that increased knowledge will enable us to recover enough of Shakespeare's own spelling to transliterate substantive prints into that; nor, on the other hand, will it ever be possible to translate the vagaries of the early texts into a kind of standardised old spelling The former would be a
It is the old spelling editor who naturally most needs the kind of guidance which a survey of printing-house spelling will provide. It is obvious that when the Folio error 'Vassailes' (Antony and Cleopatra , I.iv.56) is emended to Pope's 'wassails', all that is wanted is the substitution of an initial W for the Folio's V. It is equally obvious that Hamlet Q2's 'lowlines' (III.i.46), to be corrected to the Folio's 'lonelinesse', requires no more than the substitution of 'ne' for 'w' and that it would be quite wrong to introduce the Folio's long termination into Roberts's text where short spellings in 'nes' are the rule. It may be less obvious that when the Folio's 'counsell' is supplied at III.ii.137 it must be altered to 'counsaile'. As our eyes get more critical of old spelling we shall find increasingly offensive anomalies like Duthie's 'Then prethee' in Lear , IV.i. This spelling (imported without alteration from the quarto) gives one a jolt as it has no business in any of the Tragedies set by Jaggard B. Nor is the Lear quarto's 'dearer' the correct emendation of the Folio 'deere' (III.v.24); since Jaggard B was a 'deere' speller, 'deerer' is wanted.
To an eye trained to register the characteristic spellings of a compositor, errors sometimes acquire an added significance. In Romeo and Juliet Q2 (IV.i.83) the error 'chapels' (for 'chapless') is not a simple case of two letters having been accidentally transposed. The termination ' — lesse' is invariably used throughout this text. What the error signifies, therefore is that the compositor never intended to set up 'chaplesse' but misinterpreted as 'chapels' the spelling of his copy which must have had the short
It is perhaps failure to recognise that an Old Spelling edition of Shakespeare requires primarily an understanding of the habits of compositors that encourages the idea that there is something peculiarly difficult about it. The only difficulty is that it is an expensive pastime — and I use the words 'expensive' and 'pastime' advisedly, because it demands freedom from all other responsibilities and consequently considerable independent means. So far as substantive readings go, the old spelling editor's task is no different from that of the editor of a modernised edition; and so far as old spelling is concerned, the problem is no different from that of editing any of Shakespeare's contemporaries whose works survive only (or mainly) in print. Consequently, attempts to penetrate to Shakespeare's own spelling (though important for the detection of errors in transmission) are irrelevant to the emendation in old spelling of an Old Spelling text; nor can they wisely be made until compositors' normalisations have been stripped from substantive quarto and Folio texts set from autograph. A. C. Partridge's recent inferences from Venus and Adonis and Lucrece exemplify, for instance, the wrong way of tackling the problem.[7] What
As some of the above errors (like 'chapels' in Romeo and Juliet ) show, a consideration of a compositor's normal habits in relation to his errors will sometimes throw light on the features of his copy; but the most satisfactory evidence for the extent to which he followed copy will be found in prints set in conjunction with another workman or in reprints. Either will serve as a control, though the former is the better evidence for accidentals and the latter for substantive readings. In Hamlet Q2, for instance nearly all of the erroneous apostrophes occur in the work of one compositor and we cannot therefore suppose that these apostrophes were a feature of Roberts's manuscript. The same holds for the frequency with which erroneous apostrophes occur in the work of Jaggard B. There are no signs that he knew (or even tried to fathom) the difference between 'wert' and 'wer't', 'wast' and 'was't'. All the erroneous apostrophes in 3 Henry VI and Richard III , for instance, are in his stints and consequently the large number of erroneous apostrophes in Antony and Cleopatra which he set single-handed, were likely enough not in the copy at all any more than the apostrophe in 'dumb'd' (already mentioned). On the other hand, we must postulate, on the same evidence, that when anomalous apostrophes appear in the work of Jaggard A he followed copy. We may not always find the differences between a pair of compositors so marked as in the case of Jaggard A and B, but the differences may prove greater, when analyses have been made, than is immediately apparent.
I have so far concentrated on spelling as a main clue to compositor determination. It is not, of course, necessarily the quickest and certainly not the only way in which we can determine where the stint of one workman ended and that of another began. Typographical evidence and presswork may sometimes provide a speedier or alternative means of determining whether more than one compositor was engaged on a print and may also assist in diagnosing the maladies of a text. But, whatever the means which best serve for differentiation, an analysis of spelling habits is none the less necessary if full use is to be made of the evidence which compositors provide for refining on what are, at present, often no more than generalisations about the transmission of Shakespeare's plays and for establishing the basis on which Old Spelling texts should be emended in the appropriate spelling. Anomalies representing manuscript spellings (or the spellings of other prints) will look as alien as words introduced into one Middle English text from another in a different dialect. And although I have kept the focus on spelling, all accidentals (especially grammar and
Few editors of Shakespeare are likely to be confronted with the specialised problems of old spelling, though it should be everyone's concern that the project of an old spelling edition is realised as quickly as possible. A definitive text is an idle fancy, except in so far as the facts about quarto and First Folio readings are concerned. In this respect, what McKerrow projected can be more definitive than he foresaw, since mechanical collation has since made possible what then seemed beyond attainment. But so far as certainty in emendation enters into the matter, we are almost as much in the dark as ever we were about substantive readings; and although more knowledge about compositors should make it clearer what kind of errors (and how many) they may have made, it will never locate the errors or emend them. What I judge from my own experience is most perplexing for the editor of Shakespeare is not general issues, like the choice of a copy-text or the authoritative text. Though problems remain (as in the case of Lear ), an editor has in most cases (as editors have always had) Hobson's choice. The teasing problems (and they occur by the hundred) are individual readings — whether emendation is necessary and, if so, how to emend. Was, for instance, Portia hedged by her father's 'wit' (as the quarto has it) or by his 'will' ? Were the sweet bells of Hamlet's reason out of 'time' or out of 'tune' ? Is Antigonus's threat to 'landdamne' the slanderer of Hermione right; if so, what does it mean and, if not, what should be substituted? These are still an editor's problems (as they always have been) and, whatever an editor's personal decision may be, there can mostly be nothing definitive about it; the verdict rests with the future. If the history of the editing of Shakespeare has anything to teach, it is that no editor (so far, of course, as we know) has always been right and that confidence that the text of Shakespeare (or even the text of a single play) has been 'settled' has quickly brought down Nemesis. It is, therefore, much to be hoped that no one will be encouraged to think that a definitive text is within the compass of a single edition.
What is wanted from an old spelling edition is leadership — the application of the lessons that have been learnt in the present century, combined with recognition of what remains to be done and how to do it. Repeatedly making a fresh start is wastage of ground gained. Naturally, an old spelling edition twenty years hence should achieve more than McKerrow's
I have so far dwelt at some length on two points. I have first emphasised the need for as broadly based an analysis of compositor's spellings as possible, in case it is not generally realised how little is known about printing-house spelling in Shakespeare's day (since its history has still to be written) and in the fear that, unless the problem is tackled comprehensively from the outset, much of the reading will need to be done again if the fullest possible use is to be made of the evidence — by bibliographers (in assigning and dating prints) and by editors (necessarily concerned in determining the characteristics of the copy which reached the printer). I have dwelt secondly on the importance of printing-house spelling for the Old Spelling editor, as this is the spelling in which emendations must be made and because there seems a persistent tendency to suppose that Shakespeare's own spelling and an Old Spelling Shakespeare are somehow more crucial problems than, say, Dekker's own spelling and an Old Spelling Dekker. There is no need for me to stress my third point — the need for compositor-determination as one means of assessing the number and kind of substantive errors a compositor may have made. This is all the more important in view of the mounting evidence that the reading of proof with copy was the exception and not the rule, at any rate with Shakespeare's plays. Where we have collateral texts, the traditional method has been to use the evidence of the one as a means of estimating the damage sustained by the other in the course of transmission. I believe the method to be sound, though one would naturally wish for as much objective evidence as possible to show at what stage in transmission and by whom the damage was done. Unfortunately, the text of most of Shakespeare's plays rests on a single authority. The only means of assessing their trustworthiness in the past has been an editor's literary taste and, however valuable
What I have said about compositors must obviously affect, both now and in the future, the editing of nearly all Elizabethan and Jacobean writers. No one concerned with printed books of the period can remain entirely aloof, though editors concerned with dramatic texts, by reason of the varied channels through which copy reached the printer, have perhaps most to gain by taking a cross-section of Elizabethan and Jacobean works on the compositor basis.
The task is one, in the initial stages at least, for the analytical bibliographer, who is fortunate in being able to apply bibliographical techniques which are complementary to compositor-identification on the basis of spelling.[8] We need, in fact, in conjunction with a conspectus of printing-house
Notes
I have remarked on this in a recent review of the New Arden Titus Andronicus . It is the general policy of the new series 'to preserve all older forms that are more than variant spellings' — policy which has not I suspect, been seen in relation to its logical linguistic conclusions. When Muir, for instance, in the New Arden Lear , followed the Folio's 'murther', what was he reproducing — the compositor's spelling or a scribal alteration of the Q1 spelling on the authority of the Lear prompt-book? If it was the prompt-book spelling, was it Shakespeare's? Further, if consonant variants, like 'murther' and 'vild', are preserved, why not the vowel variants in 'show' and 'shew 'blood' and 'bloud'? Why not the commoner 'alablaster' or 'abhominable' and (contrariwise), in early texts, 'clime' for 'climb' or 'limmes' for 'limbs'? Muir went so far as to reproduce Compositor B's arbitrary distinctions between — 'd and — ed of weak preterites and past participles in prose. But what will happen in the New Arden As You Like It where there are two compositors favouring different conventions? Modern English is one thing; the habits of the compositors of Shakespearian texts are quite another, and the arbitrary preservation of a selection of the latter has no linguistic principles behind it.
I do not, of course, rule out the possibility that we have in the Tragedies reprints (as here and there in the Comedies reprints) a third hand. What I suspect is that, if we have a third hand in these Folio reprints, we cannot isolate his normal habits from the influence of printed copy any more than we could isolate the normal habits of Roberts's compositors from Titus Q2. What is wanted, in order to determine how many compositors Jaggard employed, is a survey of all Jaggard prints between (say) 1619 and 1624 with special emphasis on works set up from manuscript.
That is, I believe the disturbing factor to have been printed copy. So far as my observations go, spelling tended to become progressively more mixed the oftener a text was reprinted. I am sceptical of attempts to explain mixed characteristics as due to transcription of the quartos. Jaggard's manuscript copy must have been very diverse. How came it then that transcripts of quartos were singled out for different treatment from other manuscripts ? And if a third hand was responsible for the mixed spelling of these texts, how chanced it he was not employed in the Histories and Tragedies which were certainly set from manuscript? None of these are in mixed spelling.
Roberts Y's work in Titus Q2 provides a parallel. In view of the fact that a compositor's spelling habits were not static and that some spellings must always have been more a matter of habit than others, we cannot assume that systematic changes were made with equal facility. Under stress, only spellings which were second nature may have been used at all systematically.
There are oversights, of course, in B's use of the apostrophe, which an editor should not normalise. A compositor's substantive errors, that is, should be corrected in the light of his normal habits, but this is no reason for all-out standardisation of what was variable in accidentals.
In Shakespeare Survey, VII (1954), 35 et seq. Inferences are drawn from the two Field prints and a selection of early quartos of the plays, without any investigation of the normal habits of the compositors who set them.
The one will often assist, or refine upon, the other. After a spelling analysis has been made, it may sometimes prove far from clear which variations are significant. Fredson Bowers's account of the Hamlet Q2 's running-title evidence, for instance, at once revealed to me which variants in spelling were important and which were of no account. On the other hand, as has been shown elsewhere in this volume with reference to L4v of Roberts's quarto, spelling tests may be necessary to refine on typographical evidence. In my experience, difficulties with compositors mostly occur when too limited a range of spelling tests is used or when 'block' spellings obscure some difference in the spelling of a particular word within the group. These last should be used with the greatest caution. Recognition of what is significant depends, I think, mainly on observation, and the following spellings, additional to those earlier listed on p. 9 of Textual Problems of the First Folio , materially assist in distinguishing the hand of Jaggard A from that of Jaggard B in the Histories and Tragedies. They should be amalgamated with those presented by Cauthen in an earlier volume of Studies in Bibliography . The combined lists will be far from complete, as I have no doubt that those who have repeatedly read these plays will be able to add others.
| A | B |
| --- | --- |
| madame | madam |
| wee'le (etc.) | wee'l (etc.) |
| prowd | proud |
| ta'ne | tane |
| ougly | vgly |
| widowe | widdow |
| honie | hony |
| Heauen | heauen |
| | |