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Notes
"The Aesthetics of Textual Criticism," PMLA, 80, 1965. The Task of the Editor by James Thorpe and Claude M. Simpson Jr. (William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1969), contains Thorpe's attack on the scientific pretentions of bibliographers.
SB, 22 (1969), 61. My first reactions to McKenzie's paper were given at the Second International Conference of Elizabethan Theatre, Waterloo, Ontario, July 1969 and published in the proceedings of that conference, The Elizabethan Theatre, II, (1970). I added to Dr. McKenzie's 'chamber of horrors' but argued against the suggestion (made by his reviewer in the T.L.S., 22 May 1969) that Dr. McKenzie had demolished the greater part of the theory of skeleton formes (a claim he had not himself made) and questioned Dr. McKenzie's own use of historical perspective and his interpretation of the evidence provided of Bowyer's use of presses. I would here express my thanks and my indebtedness to several colleagues who have discussed that paper with me and read what I have to say here, in particular a former student, Peter Leach. It might be worth mentioning in this connexion that what Dr. Williams found in Troilus and Cressida (Variorum, ed H. N. Hillebrand, p. 346) and what I found in I Henry IV, Penguin ed. (1968, pp. 250-1) — a particular use of two single-skeleton-formes—has also been found by one of my undergraduates (Rosamund Bateman) in the 1607 Volpone. In addition, two more undergraduates, Silvie James and Gillian Atkins, noted single-skeleton-forme working in Spenser's Amoretti, 1595, and as late as 1630 in parts of A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. This should not destroy all faith in the theory of skeleton formes but it might modify our understanding of what happened in the Elizabethan printing house. Single-skeleton-forme working may have been more persistent than has been suggested, but this hardly means there was no methodology before the Industrial Revolution—rather the reverse, indeed.
Thorpe, pp. 14 and 29. Quoting Greg's 1932 claim as if it were a statement for all time also shows a lack of historical perspective. That Greg might have felt justified in making such a claim after basing his Calculus of Variants on the Principia Mathematica of Russell and Whitehead some five years earlier is surely understandable.
Thorpe, pp. 10-11; the passages from Housman are to be found in his Selected Prose, ed. John Carter, (1962), pp. 71 and 131; the passage I quote is from pages 1312. Thorpe also quotes Arundell Esdaile, A Student's Manual of Bibliography (1931), p. 13, as claiming "Bibliography is an art and also a science."
After 'phenomena' Medawar has a colon and "The Scientific Method." As will be apparent from what follows, it would be misleading to include this here but I mention the omission in case I am suspected of being devious.
Paris, 1865; quoted The Art of the Soluble, p. 171. It was this same Bernard who so influenced Zola.
See Robert L. Beare, "Notes on the Text of T.S. Eliot: Variants from Russell Square," SB, 9 (1957), 21-49. The issue is further complicated by the text of the film version (1952) which conflicts with the direction Eliot seemed to be taking in the stage versions, especially so far as the Fourth Knight is concerned. The textual problems of this and other modern plays are discussed by L. A. Beaurline in "The Director, the Script, and Author's Revisions: a Critical Problem," Papers in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, ed. David M. Knaut (1969), pp. 78-91.
There is a certain innocent charm in the concept of repose and order lying in enumerative bibliography. Having spent three years, off and on, endeavouring to prepare an enumerative bibliography of an uncharted subject, I might warn those considering flight that even here the hypothetico-deductive method may not be an answer-all.
This indication is given (though in curious mixture of language as "muta to A & E") in the second movement. In passing it might be noted that on page 94, Horns 1 and 2 are marked in C instead of F and Horn 4 is marked in F instead of C.
Compare L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, Oxford, 1968, p. 145: One cannot hope to identify the best manuscript of an author until one has considered the readings of all the significant manuscripts at all points where they diverge.
The Stability of Shakespeare's Text (1965), pp. 2-3. For limitations in Honigmann's approach see the review by L. A. Beaurline, Renaissance News, 19 (1966), pp. 262-5.
Cotton Ms, Cleopatra E.vi. f.176, in Facsimiles of Royal, Historical, Literary and other Autographs in the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum, Fourth Series (1898).
No. 35 in Elizabethan Handwriting, 1500-1650, ed. Giles E. Dawson and Laetitia Kennedy-Skipton (1966).
Originally published 1927; second German edition, 1949; the English translation by Barbara Flower is from the third, 1957, German edition; it was published in 1958.
(1964), p. 1. Editor: Because of my practical inexperience with the harsher realities of editing medieval manuscript texts, in this introductory statement to a consideration of the problems of later printed texts I was not then aware that I was prattling of the Age of Innocence. I kiss the rod and withdraw this statement of over-simplified optimism. F. B.
"Principles of Textual Emendation" in Studies in French Language and Mediaeval Literature Presented to Professor Mildred K. Pope, (1939), p. 351; quoted by Kane, p. 54.
See his "Marxism and Textual Criticism," Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Ges.-Sprachw. R. 12, 1963, pp. 43-52; "Simplex Ordo," Classical Quarterly, 15 (1965), pp. 161-175; "The Intrusive Gloss," Classical Quarterly, 17 (1967), pp. 232-43; and "Scientific Method in Textual Criticism: a tribute to Walter Headlam (1866-1908)," Eirene, 1 (1960), pp. 51-60.
I would not care to press too rigorously the application of Kuhn's theory of paradigm rejection to textual studies, based as it is on an interpretation of the history of science, even though Kuhn, in relating scientific and political revolutions (p. 92) does suggest the wider implications his theory can have.
It might be noted in passing that J. Bronowski and Bruce Mazlish point to the humanistic and aesthetic aspects of science in The Western Intellectual Tradition (1960), pp. 113-4. Copernicus, they argue, "could not expect to persuade the run of traditional minds of his time" and he appealed, therefore, to the mathematicians. "In a sense, then, Copernicus was appealing to the aesthetic judgement of his fellow mathematicians. This aesthetic appeal makes a complex and important idea, which underlies all the intellectual advances since the Scientific Revolution. And it is a humanistic idea."
The remarkable opening to Burnt Norton always seems to me even more astonishing in the light of twentieth-century theories of time. Quoted from T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950 (1952), p. 117.
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