University of Virginia Library

Editorial Problems in Shakespeare: Semi-Popular Editions
by
Arthur Brown [*]

The difficulty of attempting to define what is meant by a semipopular edition of Shakespeare is perhaps best overcome by the use of a few examples. I have had particularly in mind for the purpose of this paper—although the list is not intended to be anything like a complete one—such multi-volume editions as the Arden Shakespeare, the Yale Shakespeare, and Dover Wilson's New Cambridge Shakespeare, and such one-volume editions as that produced by Peter Alexander, or, more recently, by Charles Sisson. These all have certain characteristics in common, though they naturally differ in the emphasis which they give to each of these characteristics. The most obvious point is that they all give the text of the plays in modernised spelling, with at times a little variation in the point at which the line is drawn between complete modernisation and the retention of what to the editor appear to be the more interesting Elizabethan spellings, a subject which will require further attention later. In the second place, some of them make available to a greater or lesser degree variant readings from the earlier editions from the sixteenth century onwards; the Arden Shakespeare generally attempts a full collation of quartos and folios, and a fairly full collation of subsequent editions, while Dover Wilson and Charles Sisson, on the other hand, are content to note and discuss only one or two of the more outstanding examples of variant readings in each play, usually where some important question of interpretation is involved.[1] Thirdly, there is often some attempt to give the reader a picture of the textual history of each play, ranging from the brilliant, if at times erratic, hypotheses of Dover Wilson, to the more conservative introductions of the Arden volumes, some of these, perhaps,

so conservative as to show that the editor in question is out of touch with modern developments in this field. Finally, these editions attempt, by means of introductions, notes, appendices, and glossaries to make available more general information by means of which the readers' appreciation of the plays may be enhanced. In short, it may be said of these editions that their aim has been to combine scholarship with popular appeal, almost to bring Shakespeare 'out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges, to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea Tables and in Coffee Houses', or their modern equivalents.

The editor of this kind of edition is faced from the start by a very difficult problem, which is perhaps best demonstrated by reference to the two classes of reviewer into whose hands his work will fall, the one praising him for having made Shakespeare and Shakespearean scholarship more widely available to the general reader, the other doubting whether the general reader will in fact profit much from these efforts on his behalf. The point is a fundamental one, determining to a considerable extent the approach of such an editor to his work, and even leading some critics to question the whole basis upon which these editions have been established. It was raised acutely in a review by Miss W. M. T. Dodds of the New Cambridge 1 Henry IV in Modern Language Review, 1947. She first listed the aims and methods of the edition: (1) to advance textual study; (2) to advance the literary appreciation of the general reader; (3) to present to the general reader a text embodying the results of specialist methods at present beyond that reader's ken; (4) to give due weight to literary considerations, as well as to strict textual analysis, in arriving at an established text. She then pointed out that, considered individually, these aims and methods were unexceptionable, but that within the limits of a single edition they were incompatible. 'As long as critical method kept within the comprehension of the general reader,' she says, 'and editors were in fact required to be no more than especially gifted general readers, they could in one and the same edition appeal to scholar and general reader alike. But the newer critical methods of the scholar are beyond the ken of the general reader; therefore what must be offered him is decision. One cannot at the same time offer the scholar what he needs, the material for decision—the presentation of alternatives, specialised debate, and tentative solution offered for consideration.' This challenge has never, apparently, been seriously taken up. It has certainly had little effect on the New Cambridge editors, and Arden editors, while being reminded that their volumes are intended primarily for the use of undergraduates in English Universities and for teachers of senior forms in schools—neither class, surely, being able to lay claim to much acquaintance with the methods of the new critics or of the modern bibliographers—are nevertheless required to include 'adequate and

if possible impartial discussion of textual problems . . . giving due, but not undue, attention to the most recent work in the field', to give very full collations of earlier editions, and to be aware of the most advanced thought in the field, for example, of Shakespearean imagery. More recently Charles Sisson, while keeping fairly clear of such matters, has nevertheless thought fit to introduce questions of Elizabethan handwriting to the general reader, and both he and Peter Alexander have considered that the preliminary matter of the First Folio, a notorious source of much misunderstanding, also forms suitable material for the same reader. They may be right; but the trouble which seems to underlie all these semi-popular editions to some degree is the simple fact that editors are working not with any class of reader clearly in mind, but in order to give expression to their own particular interests, their own private line of business in the great Shakespeare industry; and the result is editing for the sake of the editor, not the reader. To some extent this is inevitable, and editors cannot be required to suppress entirely their personal beliefs, idiosyncracies, preferences, or interests; but what should be a cardinal principle in this semi-popular editing is that editors should be aware that their responsibilities are far greater than those of scholars who are presenting material primarily for the consideration of other scholars. Their readers will be much more inclined to accept their word as the last word on the subject; lacking the discipline which enables a scholar to distinguish between true and false reasoning, between the significant and the non-significant, they may be led by almost every volume so far mentioned into some strange beliefs about Shakespeare and his plays.

It will be convenient to see how this principle of editorial responsibility works out in connection with certain other problems confronting the editor of a semi-popular edition of Shakespeare. In his choice of text, naturally, he has no option but to proceed according to the soundest textual and bibliographical principles; whether a reader is well versed in Shakespearean scholarship or not is immaterial here—he is entitled in any case to be treated honestly, and provided with a text which is as close as scholarship can make it to the intentions of the author. It ought to be unnecessary to labour this point, but it is pertinent to recall that as recently as 1950 R. C. Bald drew attention to the fact that two new college Shakespeares, prepared by two of the most distinguished Shakespearean scholars in the United States, and 'bound to exert a strong influence on the teaching of Shakespeare for a generation or so', reproduced the Globe text[2] ; and although wiser counsels prevailed, the publishers of the Arden Shakespeare were prepared to retain in the new volumes the stereotype plates of the text as it appeared in the original Arden series, making only minor alterations where absolutely necessary. As Bald remarked, such an attitude would

be understandable only if there had been no advances in the textual study of Shakespeare during the present century, and this clearly is far from being the case. The original Cambridge editors, with all respect to the fine work they did, can no longer be regarded as supplying the best text for any class of reader, although even within the last year one volume at least has specifically advertised its reliance on this authority.

How far should the editor of a semi-popular edition attempt to justify his choice of text, or to present any kind of discussion of the textual background of the play? This, surely, is one of the matters upon which the general reader requires decisions, not arguments. Any attempt to pour the dry wine of bibliography down his throat will only succeed in choking him, and any attempt to weaken the draught by watering it down will only give him a totally false impression of his capacity to absorb the stuff. This means, therefore, that the editor must do all the hard work in advance, and must be prepared to sacrifice all his labours, his arguments, and his theories for the sake of an authoritative statement of conclusions; the scholarly journal is the place for the other material. This is, perhaps, one of the editor's most difficult tasks; the desire to argue, to flourish evidence triumphantly, is one of the strongest temptations of the scholar. It is well to bear in mind, however, in this connection, Dr. Shaaber's remarks before the English Institute in 1947 on good and bad Shakespearean texts; in picking out what he considered to be some of the best modern texts he remarked, 'That they are the best, the average reader would never recognise . . . the difference is visible only to an experienced eye.' Nor can it be expected that this reader will be any more sensitive to fine argument on the subject. In this respect, the New Cambridge and the Arden editors have sinned exceedingly; the former has overloaded his pages with arguments and evidence which could be of interest or value only to the scholar, and with conclusions which could only mystify and often mislead the general reader; the Arden editors have gone astray in almost as many directions as there have been editors, ranging from the lack of comprehension of the significance of press variants brought to light by Dr. Hinman's collation of multiple copies of the First Folio, to an imprecise, if full, recording of the bibliographical and technical data pertinent to the text of Titus Andronicus—and of the latter Sir Walter Greg remarked in a review[3] that the account of some of the phenomena is too condensed to be intelligible; if this is the effect on Sir Walter, what of the reader to whom this edition is allegedly appealing? Similarly T. M. Parrott, reviewing the Arden Love's Labour's Lost, was forced to conclude that 'as the play stands in this, or in any other edition, instead of giving the delight it should, it presents a puzzle to the general reader and offers a battle-ground for scholarly

critics.'[4] All these cases suggest lack of clarity in the minds of the editors about the kind of edition they are producing, and lead one to suspect that they have been more concerned with the fullest possible expression of their own ideas on a selection only of the many matters which ought to be of editorial concern than with the ultimate effect of the edition upon the reader interested in Shakespeare.

It would be possible to speak at length of the problems arising during the process of modernising the spelling of the plays, and indeed on the question whether this process is any longer worthwhile. One has at times more than a vague suspicion that the habit has more to do with the continued reliance of many semi-popular editions upon the traditional Cambridge text than with the alleged difficulties that an old-spelling text would present to the general reader. But this is beside the point at the moment; most modern editions are committed to modernised spelling, and the General Editor of the Arden series has made the principle involved quite clear: 'To present a reliable text within the limits imposed by modernisation'. Sir Walter Greg, in the review of the Arden Titus Andronicus previously mentioned, discusses some of the resulting problems. 'While necessarily modernising spelling,' he says, 'he [the editor] retains what he regards as distinct early forms, like murther, banket, and vild, and would, I suppose, have kept fadom had it occurred. At the same time he refuses tortering, and so would, I suppose, reject venter; what would he do with the well authenticated form totter for tatter? As he says, consistency is hardly attainable, and it is difficult to draw the line. He very sensibly refuses to reduce and to an when it means if, but how when the original reads an't or an if, both of which occur in the Folio?' For the present writer, at least, complete modernisation as far as this is attainable has seemed to be the right principle, and he is happy to find agreement from Dr. Alice Walker in this matter.[5] Problems remain, none the less. What, for example, is an editor to do when a rhyme requires the retention of a form murther? or when, as in Midsummer Night's Dream, the forms murther and murder lanthorn and lantern occur in adjacent lines? If, as in some editions, lanthorn is retained at one point for the sake of an alleged pun, is it inconsistent to reject it elsewhere? There is, of course, little excuse for the juggling with forms which occurs on one occasion in the New Cambridge 2 Henry IV, where the editor, anxious to retain what he presumably thought of as a Shakespearean spelling berod for 'bear-herd' (although what the general reader would make of such a spelling it is difficult to say), actually transfers from Much Ado About Nothing the even more complicated spelling berrord 'for the sake of consistency.' There is not room to

discuss here the confusion between alleged Shakespearean spellings and what are, in fact, compositors' habits, a subject on which Dr. Walker, in the paper already referred to, has spoken with some authority, but it is clearly something which an editor must have very much in mind. The way of the modernised spelling editor is hard compared with that of his old spelling colleague; the points mentioned so far may be small ones, but they occur frequently and require a decision each time, and the cumulative effect is wearying! Consider also the use of the apostrophe before final s, a mark which did not come into general use until late in the seventeenth century; the modernised spelling editor is constantly coming up against words which require the decision—singular or plural, and sometimes the decision on whether the contraction for is is not the right answer. Lysander in Midsummer Night's Dream, pleading his claim to Hermia against Demetrius, says Does he mean 'my fortune is every way as fairly ranked', thus forming a parallel to 'my love is more than his', or are we to take fortunes as a plural with the verb are understood? Editors from Rowe onward are fairly evenly divided on these possible interpretations; the old spelling editor would not need to make up his mind since he can print fortunes from the quartos and folios with a clear conscience, and leave it at that. In the same play Titania urges her fairies to steal the honey bags from the humble bees, One glow worm, or more than one? The former has usually won editorial favour, I think, but the latter has been urged in order to form a parallel with humble bees. Bottom, having received the acclamations of the fairies, replies, 'I cry your worships mercy heartily. I beseech your worships name.' The context makes it clear that the second use of worships is addressed to Cobweb only, but there remains honest doubt whether the first is addressed to all the fairies or already directed at Cobweb only. None of these illustrations are of grave importance, but they do help to emphasise the question of editorial responsibility once more; the editor of an old spelling reprint need not worry about them; the editor of a scholarly critical edition might feel that some comment is called for, some justification of his decision in each case, but he could console himself with the knowledge that his scholarly readers were in possession of sufficient evidence to make up their own minds. Is the editor of a semi-popular text justified in bringing such questions to the attention of his readers? Surely he would do better to make up his own mind and present his readers with decisions; which means that in all honesty he must be as certain as he can be that he has made the right decision, whether the question be one of the number of glow worms or of much greater significance. And this principle applies to the whole mass of detail which arises in the process of transforming the less restricted spelling habits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries into the standardised forms of our own day.

If spelling is to be modernised, there can be little justification for expecting the general reader to be edified, or even impressed, by any attempt to retain the punctuation of quarto or folio. McKerrow seems to have had the two things in mind together when he remarked of the punctuation of the First Folio that 'though it is undoubtedly less regular than we are accustomed to nowadays, it really presents no more difficulty than the old spelling does, while it often suggests the way in which a speech is intended to be uttered more clearly than does the more "logical" punctuation of the modern texts.'[6] This is true enough, but one may nevertheless doubt whether a reading public which seems to require modernised spelling will be able to make very much of what is at times the quite subtle dramatic punctuation of quartos and folios. (One might add as a parenthesis that there is also a temptation to suspect that here too, as in the case of strange spellings, the alleged subtlety may sometimes exist rather in the mind of the scholar contemplating the text than in any conscious intent on the part of the compositor, still less of the author; but this is another question.) The editor is also faced with the problem of the modern attitude towards punctuation, which regards it often enough neither as a dramatic device nor as a grammatical discipline, but at best merely as a concession to practicality in the avoidance of complete misunderstanding—and even this is not always achieved—or at worst as sheer pedantry. Whether we like it or not, we are faced with a reading public which, like Peter Quince, 'Knows not the stop', or at least knows no stop beyond the point and an occasional haphazard comma, and the seed of dramatic punctuation, if too liberally scattered in semi-popular editions, is likely to fall on stony ground. It may have been with the idea of getting at least some of it on more fertile soil that Dover Wilson multiplied each grain by four, but it is difficult to believe that the horrid rash of points which disfigures his pages as a result is really the best answer to the problem. In one respect, the modern distaste for niceties of punctuation is an advantage in that it enables an editor to get away with considerably lighter punctuation than he could have done some fifty years ago, and thus in a sense he may be able to give more of an impression of dramatic presentation to the speeches than if he were compelled to observe the requirements of a stricter grammatical tradition. As

an example might be instanced some of the speeches of Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream, where the sense is so clear in any case that they could almost be printed without any punctuation at all, but which require at the most only the lightest sprinkling of commas and the occasional stop to fulfill the demands of the dramatist and the grammarian, and to avoid offence to even the most rabid of the 'no pedantry' school. The principle upon which the editor must work, therefore, is fairly clear; he cannot hope for many readers capable of appreciating the retention of much original punctuation on dramatic grounds, and in any case, if he has once given way over the spelling, it seems merely quixotic for him to make a stand at this point; in the second place, the plays clearly do not call for the application of strict grammatical punctuation, which would be difficult to impose and, for better or for worse, out of touch with modern trends. Once again the question of responsibility arises, and the editor himself must decide, to the satisfaction at least of his own conscience, without any attempt at justification in the volume itself, just how a passage ought to be interpreted, bearing in mind naturally the pointing of the original editions, and how best this interpretation may be presented in terms of modern practices of punctuation.[7] If this sounds like an involved statement of the obvious, the critic should look again at what can happen in the New Cambridge Shakespeare when originality takes over.

Faced with the problem of act and scene divisions, Dover Wilson has, on the other hand, given a more satisfactory answer. Two apparently opposed facts have to be dealt with; the first, that most of the divisions have probably little authority as far as Shakespeare is concerned, and little to do with the actual presentation of the play; the second, that they have been traditionally accepted in practically all editions from Rowe's on, and serve as a useful means of reference. Dr. Shaaber, in his paper before the English Institute in 1947, seemed to hint that for scholarly editions he would prefer to see all this apparatus abandoned; but probably for the editions under discussion a discreet removal of these divisions from the centre of the body of the text, where they draw too much attention to themselves, to one of the margins, where they may still serve their only purpose and harm no one, is the best solution. It does, in fact, seem improbable that the general reader will be affected for better or for worse either by their rejection or by

their retention, but there is little point in calling his attention too closely to them. Certainly there need be no discussion in these editions about the editors' ideas on the 'right places' for these traditional divisions, and to load one's collations with the various opinions on the matter seems to be a singularly useless proceeding. Once more let the editor select what divisions he will, and keep them discretely proportionate to the text.

The problem of collation is not one which should concern the editor of a semi-popular edition to any great extent, but it seems that here too the tradition established by the original Cambridge editors is having too much influence, especially, for example, in the case of the Arden series. Clearly in a full scale Variorum edition the job needs to be done thoroughly, completely, and accurately, although even here one may, in the last resort and over matters of importance, legitimately take leave to doubt the infallibility of the editor and consult the original texts—in fact, what textual critic worthy of the name will not do this frequently? Still, it is useful to have all the material of this nature pertaining to one play at hand in a single volume. Is there, however, much of a case to be made for the inclusion of any degree of collation in a semi-popular edition, let alone the somewhat elaborate apparatus of the Arden volumes? If the full collation of the Variorum is abandoned, what is the purpose of a partial collation? It is, of course, to give the authority for readings printed in the text, and to provide a selection of other possible readings which the editor thinks worthy of consideration. Regarding the authority for readings printed in the text, it has already been suggested that this is a matter upon which the editor is required to present his readers with decisions which they can accept, not with evidence which they are not trained to weigh, nor with argument which they are not trained to follow. Possibly something could be said for the inclusion of other readings thought by the editor worthy of consideration, particularly in cases of serious corruption in the text; but these may be included as part of the commentary, and should in any case be kept to a minimum. It should once more be the editor's responsibility to sift the available material, and to present, if he feels that the occasion requires it, only those readings which, bearing in mind palaeographical and bibliographical considerations, have some chance of being connected with what Shakespeare may have written. We are still carrying far too much dead wood in the way of conjectural emendations from the later folios and the eighteenth century editors, and certainly our semi-popular editions should not be made the vehicle for these.[8]

With regard to the apparatus of a more general nature—explanatory notes on text and collations, notes on obscure passages, on Elizabethan vocabulary and syntax, general literary comment on the play itself, its action, imagery, and so forth—clearly there is a great temptation to think that the general reader will need as much of this as the editor can possibly cram in. It is to be hoped that there will soon be a complete disappearance of the editor whom Fredson Bowers castigates as 'not caring too much about his text because all he needs is a peg on which to hang his annotations',[9] but there is still danger from the editor whose mind has become a veritable rag-bag of odd tags of information and more recondite allusions which he is determined to drag in at all costs whenever an occasion presents itself—and sometimes without an occasion; still danger from what Bowers again has called 'wilful haring after the idly speculative'. The General Editor of the Arden series writes in her Preface to the Macbeth volume that it is the purpose of the edition to offer readers 'as much as could be presented in brief and intelligible form of the immense body of scholarship which the first half of the twentieth century has contributed to the field of Shakespeare studies.' This is an admirable enough purpose on the face of it, but one fraught with danger for editor and reader alike. The former, unless he exercises the strictest possible control over himself, will be submerged under the mass of material that seems to clamour for inclusion, and will be hard put to it to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sir Walter Greg hints at the problem in his review of the Arden Titus Andronicus: 'I must not embark upon a discussion of the commentary', he says, 'which is professedly "designed to meet the requirements of relatively elementary as well as of more advanced students", beyond recording my impression that along with much that is acute and useful, there is not a little that could be dispensed with.' The danger of attempting to appeal to elementary and advanced students within the limits of a single volume has already been mentioned in connection with textual and bibliographical material, and it is a danger present also in connection with the more general commentary; if a reader can be choked with dry wine, he can also be made very uncomfortable with a surfeit of clotted cream, and it is probably better to say too little than too much.[10] It should not be necessary—though some

recent examples seem to suggest that it unfortunately is—to insist that the editor should deal fairly with his readers, and, whatever his private opinion may be, should not make something appear to be fact which is still no more than conjecture. It is very easy to do this, particularly when the objections to a theory may appear to be purely academic and the space is short. But it must be emphasised that it is from this kind of edition that a great many people get their initial ideas and impressions about Shakespeare, and it should surely be worthwhile to take the trouble to ensure that these ideas and impressions are as free as they can be from the possibility of error and misunderstanding. In this connection the very difficult problem of alleged topical allusions in Love's Labour's Lost may be cited as a single example, though many more could be given; this problem, revived in the most recent edition of the play, has there been presented in such a way as either to mislead the general reader quite seriously as to the nature of the play, or at least to confuse him almost beyond hope of recovery. This is admittedly an extreme case, but a model example of the kind of occasion on which editorial responsibility needs to be of a very high order indeed; it illustrates well almost all the pitfalls, literary and bibliographical, which lie in wait for an editor, and almost all the ways in which the non-scholarly reader in particular can receive distorted notions about Shakespeare.

The editing of Shakespeare—and indeed the editing of any seventeenth century author—has reached an important stage of development, and before any further progress is attempted it is well to take stock of the situation. The present century has seen great advances in critical interpretation and appreciation of the texts, in the understanding of the technical processes by which the texts were made available to readers, and in the knowledge of the general historical background which affected their production at all stages. In addition, it is scarcely any longer possible to say, as Dr. Shaaber did in 1947, that 'there are possibly not more than thirty men alive, in English speaking countries, who have edited a play of Shakespeare, and this happy band of brothers is not likely to grow much larger in the near future.' The band is growing, for various reasons, nor perhaps is it accurate any longer to speak of it as a happy band! Shaaber was right to talk of the editing of Shakespeare as 'a highly specialised industry', but for better or for worse we are faced with a great increase in the number of specialists and would-be specialists, who seem increasingly to regard editing

as a happy hunting ground for the exercise of their peculiar talents. Both textual and critical studies suffer from them, and the trouble lies in their refusal to recognise their limitations, to see that the language they speak may be incomprehensible to ninety per cent of their readers. There is no great danger as long as they confine themselves to lecturing their fellow specialists, but when they take upon themselves the task of bringing the light to non-specialist readers their crusading enthusiasm often leads them either to include excessive amounts of material, not always well digested, or to attempt such a degree of popularisation as to lead their readers into a false sense of security. This paper is an appeal to those who undertake to supply the demand for semi-popular editions of Shakespeare for a greater sense of editorial responsibility, arising from a clear understanding of the limitations of the prospective readers—and there need be nothing patronising about such an understanding—an appeal for a willingness on the part of an editor to state conclusions without a lengthy demonstration of his cleverness in reaching them; for a realisation that writing for non-specialists does not mean either that they must be forcibly fed with rich food and left to digest it or take the consequences, or that popularisation implies the neglect, or at least the glossing over, of conclusions established by scholarship. The task calls for considerable self-discipline, for a degree of suppression of a too exuberant editorial personality in favour of a sober and authoritative presentation of reliable conclusions. The appeal is for more common sense and less virtuosity (in its meaning of excessive attention to technique), for a retention of the high standards of scholarship without a too ostentatious display of the material rewards of this virtue. There is little fear that the scholarly world, in its present highly competitive state, will be grossly misled by its more brilliant light; but there is considerable danger that the general reader will gain, from work at present being made available to him, either nothing at all of any value for his peculiar requirements, or entirely false impressions of what the scholars are doing, or, worst of all, of what Shakespeare was doing. The demand for semi-popular editions of Shakespeare is not likely to diminish; we ought, in all fairness, to see that it is honestly met.

Notes