In 1893 the Catholic University of Louvain inaugurated a curriculum in Germanic
philology (i.e. English, Dutch, and German studies). The German Orientalist Willy Bang Kaup
(1869-1934) was among the first professors of the new section and became responsible for the
courses of English language and literature. Bang, who had come to Louvain to study in the
famous Oriental school of Prof. Charles de Harlez, published from 1889 onwards many articles on
Old-Persian, "Kökturkish", and related topics. Undoubtedly, "the experience gained by his
Oriental studies" was of great influence on his English scholarship, and "he had learned to found
scientific structure only on texts both accurately represented and judiciously interpreted by
unexceptionable linguistic and historic information", as his successor H. De Vocht put it in
1935.[1]
In 1902 Bang set up a series of Materialien zur Kunde des älteren
Englischen Dramas
(Louvain, Uystpruyst) aiming at the publication of editions of 16th- and 17th-century
English
dramatic works. The first volume in the series was The Blind Beggar of
Bednall Green by Henry
Chettle and John Day, edited after the quarto of 1659. In his introductory notes
("Vorbemerkungen") we learn in a nutshell Bang's editorial principles: an exact report of the
copies known to the editor (in casu two), explicit indication of the copy
used, discussion of the
reasons why this copy is preferred, and a survey of the variant readings. The editor here gives the
text of the copy belonging to the collector Bernard Quaritch;[2] "in dem Exemplar des Brit. Mus.
Sind, wie dies öfter geschah, eine Anzahl von Verbesserungen angebracht worden [in the
copy of
the Brit. Mus., as this frequently happened, a number of corrections have been made]", Bang
maintains (p. IX), thus setting the problem of press corrections. He gives a reprint of Quaritch's
copy, "ohne jegliche Veränderung [without any
alteration]", so that his edition practically has the
value of a facsimile reprint ("soweit Menschenwerk sich mit einem rein mechanischen Verfahren
überhaupt messen kann [so far as work of man can measure altogether with purely
mechanical
procedures]" [p.IX]). Bang realized however
that a photographic reproduction better reflects the particularities of the original, e.g. broken
characters. Even so, he tried to give as accurate a reproduction of the original text as possible,
including misprints or spelling mistakes. Remarks on non-printed or broken characters or
misprints are given among the explanatory annotations ("Erläuterungen"). At the end he
provides
a short index of names and terms.
The next year, 1903, Bang published two more editions: The King and
Queenes
Entertainement at Richmond (1636), in collaboration with the Viennese professor R.
Brotanek,
and Pleasant Dialogues and Dramma's from Thomas Heywood (1637). In
1904 two eminent
editors, actually the founders of analytical bibliography in Great Britain, appeared in the series: W.
W. Greg and R. B. McKerrow.[3] Greg was
recommended to Bang by G. C. Moore Smith (1858-1940; Professor of English literature ) in a
letter of October 29, 1902 ("Greg is Sub-editor of the
Modern Quarterly. If you want another collaborateur, he would be a good man for you. He is a
man of property").[4] At that time, Bang and
Greg were already in correspondence (there is at any
rate a letter from Greg dated January 26, 1902). Greg in turn recommended McKerrow to Bang
in a letter dated February 9, 1903 ("If you happen to want furter [sic]
co-operators I would
suggest your writing to R. B. McKerrow . . . he is a very keen student + one of the most accurate
men I know"). An intensive correspondence developed between Greg and McKerrow on the one
hand and Bang on the other. Greg's and McKerrow's letters to Bang, extant in the Louvain
University Library,[5] throw much light on the
genesis and the reception of some editions in the
Materialien series, and they provide us with background information on
the founding of Greg's
Malone Society. I shall look at these aspects in greater detail.
On November 5, 1902, Greg expressed his thanks to Bang for receiving a copy of The
Blind Beggar and he referred to a review by Prof. Moore Smith about to appear in The Modern
Language Quarterly; to this review Greg had added a note in which Bang would
see--according
to Greg--that he (Greg) is "not altogether in favour of the very conservative methods" Bang has
adopted. Nevertheless Greg expresses his readiness "to undertake a play" in Bang's series "on the
lines you have laid down", as he puts it to Bang.
In his review of Bang's Blind Beggar in The
Modern Language Quarterly
[6]
Greg indeed turns against "the ultra-conservative system now commonly
adopted"; he
states that "reliable 'critical' editions" are needed and not so much an attempt to produce "a
photographic facsimile", and he notes that what Bang puts forward as "Materialien" "is in fact but
the 'material' for an edition". While Bang in his edition has intentionally retained the misprints of
the original, it would--according to Greg--have been normal to give a list of these misprints or
to mention them in the notes. Because that has not been done, we do not know whether misprints
in the actual text are intentional or not. Moreover, Bang "informs us that he has used a transcript
from a copy in the British Museum. There are, however, two copies in our national collection".
What is worse, Bang gives some differences between his transcript of the (or better: a) British
Museum copy and the copy of Mr. Quaritch he actually uses; Greg has been able to inspect the
original copies in the British Museum and to establish that in those cases there are no deviations at
all.
In 1903 Greg reviewed the second volume in the Materialien
series[7] and found some
improvements as compared with the first--e.g., a list of misprints is now given. As to the
editorial principles, Greg refers to what he had said earlier, but he is at the same time "glad to
learn from Prof. Bang that his series is equally open to 'critical editions', which at the present, we
confess, appear to us the greater desideratum". It is interesting in this respect to refer to a short
letter of Greg's dated February 3, 1903, in which he speaks of a copy of The
Library he sends to
Bang, "which contains an article of mine on the editing of plays". A glance at this article,
published in The Library in 1902,[8] shows that Greg after all has a moderate opinion as to the
editing of older plays; he tries to hit upon a middle course between "uncritical mangling of an
author" and "pedantic retention of an obsolete orthography" (p. 415). Still he seems to be more
inclined to what he calls "the literatim method" (p. 418) than to
modernization or normalization
of the text.
At the end of Greg's article occurs a remarkable passage that bears examination. Greg
alludes to "the possibility of a large number of plays being reprinted on some uniform plan", "the
text of each play . . . published separately". With some "expert non-literary assistance in
proof-reading and collation", "it might be possible for a single scholar to produce, on a uniform
principle, sufficient texts to keep his literary friends well employed in writing notes and
introductions to them, and the advantages of such a division of labour would be many" (pp.
425-426). In other words, this article suggests that Greg was considering the creation of a society
for
the editing of older plays in 1902, about the time the first volume of Bang's Materialien was
at press and a couple of years before he would start his own series of editions in the Malone
Society.
In 1904 Greg published two volumes in the Materialien: Everyman and A New Enterlude
of Godly Queene Hester. He had referred to his edition of A New
Enterlude . . . as early as 1902.
In his already mentioned letter to Bang dated November 5 of that year, he not only expressed his
willingness to edit a play but he also indicated he had a title in mind. If he were to publish an
edition in Bang's series, he would choose "Queen Hester", provided he
could "get the Duke of
Devonshire's copy transfered to the British Museum". In his letters to Bang we learn about some
difficulties Greg had in obtaining that volume (cf. letters of January 22, February 5, February 9,
February 20, and April 21, 1903).
Greg edited the work after the unique extant copy of the 1561 original. His edition
consists of an introduction (description of the copy, former editions, date, and authorship), a list
of misprints in the original, the text of the play, and explanatory notes with an "Index to the
notes". He renders the text as faithfully to the original as possible; even the misprints mentioned
are left in the text. Greg explicitly states that he has followed "the methods adopted in the earlier
volumes of the Materialien" (p. VII).
R. B. McKerrow, who was working on his great edition of Thomas Nashe (published
1904-1910), was in June 1903 "making a transcript of 'The Devil's Charter'" (letter of June 11).
The work appeared in 1904 as The Devil's Charter by Barnabe Barnes edited
from the quarto of
1607. Introduction (date, sources, text), appendix, the edited text proper, textual notes,
explanatory notes, and an index: these are the parts of the edition. McKerrow made use of four
copies of the quarto of 1607, which differ from one another. Aware that press-corrections were
common in the handpress-period, McKerrow does not simply give a reprint of one of the copies;
he draws attention to the fact that, in order to try to "represent as nearly as possible what the
author intended" (p. XV), some sheets must be taken from one copy and others from another.
But, given the actual process of printing, one should even go further, and take the forme as the
unit of printing, not the sheet ("it has never been pointed out and is far from being generally
recognized" [p. XV]). With this statement, McKerrow lays down one of the basic rules of
analytical bibliography.
In his introduction McKerrow gives "a table showing the condition with regard to
correctness of the outer and inner pages respectively of each sheet of the four copies . . .". He
follows copy A, except for two sheets for which the different formes are most corrected in copy B
(pp. XVII-XVIII). The "textual notes" at the end give the variants between the different copies.
The text of the play proper, including its misprints, is given as faithfully as possible, with those
errors in the original edition corrected in the explanatory notes. There is in this respect some
problem with the distinction between "e" and "c". McKerrow had pointed out already in a letter
to Bang on October 21, 1903, that about 25% of the "e's" in The Devils'
Charter look like "c's".
In his introduction to the edition he deals again with the question,
pointing out that the cross-bar of the "e" is frequently absent, owing as he supposes "to
the
printer clearing out the letter with a spike"; as a result the "e" in these cases resembles the "c". "In
such cases when an
e was obviously required I have given
c only if it seemed fairly certain that the
wrong letter really had been used" (p. XVIII).
In the next year, 1905, Greg and McKerrow continued their editorial activities in the
Materialien series. Bang and Greg together brought about an edition of
Ben Jonson's Every Man
in his Humor, while Bang and McKerrow published The Enterlude of
Youth. Greg edited Ben
Jonson's Sad Shepherd in the same year.
The years 1905-1906 were decisive for the foundation of the Malone Society, and Greg's
and McKerrow's letters to Bang contain important information in this regard. A prefiguration of
the society turns up in a letter from McKerrow of August 4, 1905. In it he speaks of the "scheme"
by Bullen (the editor of McKerrow's Nashe edition) "for reprinting a lot of things", although "the
scheme is in an embryo state yet"; "The idea is to do all the books that were widely read when
Shakespeare came to London or about that time". A couple of days later (August 8) McKerrow
tells Bang about his visit to Stratford-on-Avon, where Bullen lived at that time, "to discuss the
new series". He reassures Bang, "We shall not interfere at all with yours".
A short letter from McKerrow dated August 12 says nothing about the intended series,
but in McKerrow's letter of August 20 there is an interesting passage worth quoting at some
length. Perhaps Bang has proposed to collaborate; McKerrow writes: "I don't think Bullen will
want any collaborators for the new series at present, [the difficulty canceled] as the scheme will
have to go on very slowly--at first at any rate--to see if there is any chance of its paying. The
great difficulty is the cost of transcripts. People in this country will not buy books of the kind, and
unless one can get rid of a considerable part of an edition abroad one doesn't get ones [sic]
money back (e.g. he tells me that, of the copies of Nashe already sold,
germany has taken just
about half, which doesn't say much for the interest taken here in Eliz. lit.)". Ten days later,
August 30: "The series is for the moment at a standstill--or rather it has not begun to move. but I
hope it will". And again on September 2: "The series of 'Shakespeare's Books' is hung up for the
moment but I hope will go forward later". McKerrow enumerates titles that might be included. He
points out he has been thinking for years of the necessity of starting a new Elizabethan society. In
order that such a society would not disappear like other literary societies, McKerrow thinks that it
should be "merely a reprinting society, with no meetings or only an annual one, and management
kept in the hands of a good [and str canceled] committee of people who
actually had worked or
were working for the society (without 'figureheads')". "Some day I shall try", he continues, "if no
one [next word interlined] else does it first,--but not until I have finished
Nashe & a few other
things".
On June 16, 1906, Bang received a letter from Greg that must have puzzled him. Greg
expounds his idea "to start a society for the production of facsimile reprints of old
plays--primarily before 1600. It is not proposed to
have any sort of critical apparatus but to concentrate our efforts on facsimile work".
"Mechanical
process work" is too expensive and gives unsatisfactory results, according to Greg, "so we are
driven back on type facsimiles". A fortnight later (July 3) McKerrow informs Bang that the three
plays he referred to in a former letter (May 31), namely
Wealth and
Health,
Impatient Poverty,
and
John the Evangelist, have been bought by the British Museum. As to
Greg and "this scheme
of his" McKerrow says: "I don't myself know much about it as he [Greg] seems to wish to keep it
rather dark from me--at any rate he has not been very communicative on the subject". In the
margin McKerrow notes: "Don't say anything about this to Greg, or to anyone else--it
may be
unintentional on his part". McKerrow thinks that Greg is going to issue the three plays
mentioned.
[9]
In the middle of July Bang received two most important letters--one from A. W. Pollard
(July 15) and one from Greg (July 17)--that tell us more about the intention and the background
of the foundation of the new society.[10] Bang
must have written an alarming letter to Greg in
answer to the latter's announcement of the society to be founded (cf. supra, letter dated June 16);
Greg had shown Bang's letter to Pollard,[11]
who in his letter to Bang admits that the society is his
idea. At the same time he proposes some help (e.g., in selling the volumes of the Materialien).
Pollard frankly affirms that a national sense is the main motive behind the proposal ("scholars like
Mr. Greg & Mr McKerrow have to take their work abroad to find print & paper");
moreover, we
English are used to this kind of editorial work, he says, and the interest we arouse will perhaps
bring new subscribers to the Materialien too. For the moment Pollard
does not fall in with Bang's
idea of starting a larger Tudor and Stuart Text Society.
It should be mentioned in passing that this was not the first time the motive of national
responsibility was used in connection with the edition of older English plays. Indeed, when Henry
Charles Moore reviewed McKerrow's The Devil's Charter and Bang's Ben Jonson's Dramas in
Notes and Queries of February 18, 1905, he says "we cannot but regret
that it is reserved to
foreigners to accomplish what should be assumed as a national responsibility". As McKerrow was
anything but a foreigner, it is obvious that the reviewer aimed at the Materialien series as a
whole.
The same idea turns up again in Greg's lengthy letter of July 17 (cf.
Appendix). Foreigners
working in English scholarship have his full support, he says, "but that
does not prevent my holding that the work ought to be done by us Englishmen ourselves, as an
English affair". Greg states clearly that, although originally he met Bang's editorial method with
mistrust (cf. supra), it was largely through working for the
Materialien
that he was converted to
the method of the facsimile reprint. Greg thinks the societies can work harmoniously side by side,
and he hopes to be able to participate further in the
Materialien series. He
closes by referring to a
meeting scheduled for July 30 to found the society and he says that he has sent Bang's letter to
Frank Sidgwick of the publishing house A. H. Bullen.
There are two letters dated July 19 from McKerrow to Bang. In one of them McKerrow
expresses his doubts on the usefulness of the new society, "though if there was some hope that
they would actually do all the plays, it would be useful. Most societies,
however, do a little of the
more obvious work and then, when they come to what is out of the way & really wants
doing,
they collapse". On July 20 F. Sidgwick, to whom Greg had sent Bang's letter, expressed in a
letter to Bang his view--which he also uttered "to Greg, McKerrow, and Chambers"--that Bang,
"being first in the field with Materialien", should have the priority as far
as the three recently
discovered plays (cf. supra) are concerned. A couple of days later (July 23) Sidgwick could
reassure Bang: he has been talking to Greg and McKerrow, and he thinks "matters will go
smoothly regarding the new Text society". As a matter of fact, on July 24 both Greg and
McKerrow wrote (separately) a letter to Bang, stating that, if Bang wanted one of the cited plays
(specifically, Impatient Poverty) in the Materialien, there would be no interference on their part
(by means of an edition of their own, for instance). Moreover, the new society, as McKerrow puts
it, "will in general make it a principle to interfere as little as possible with lines of work which you
have taken up", and Greg even proposes to Bang to recommend that the new society should elect
him an Honorary member.
At a meeting on July 30 the Malone Society was founded, with its object, according to the
prospectus, "the production of accurate copies of the best editions of early plays". Greg would act
as a secretary, and in the organizing committee of the society McKerrow was appointed "more or
less to represent the interests of the Materialien!!" as he writes in a letter
to Bang on July 31.[12]
In Bang's papers are minutes of two letters he wrote in September 1906 to A. Feuillerat,
the French scholar who edited, among other things, Documents of the Office
of the Revels, under
Elizabeth in the Materialien (1908). The letter dated September 26
gives us a rare testimony by
Bang about the foundation of the Malone Society. He writes: "Quant à Greg-Pollard it
n'y a rien
eu du tout entre nous (à ce que je sache au moins . . .); mais il[s
canceled] leur semble que
English scholarship ne doit pas marcher sous les ordres de
l'Etranger--vous connaissez, sans doute, le beau terme de 'national shame'! [As to
Greg-Pollard,
nothing at all came between us (
at least as far as I know . . .); but it
seems to them that English
scholarship should not march by order of the Foreigner--you undoubtedly know the beautiful
term of 'national shame'!]". He refers to the fact that he proposed them to found a "
Tudor &
Stuart Texts Soc.", but: "rien pour le moment [nothing at the moment]". And that Bang was
not
unperturbed by the foundation of the Malone Society is proved by the passage: "Toute cette
affaire m'a joliment mis hors de mes gonds au moment où je vous ai écrit que
j'étais énervé. C'est
fini maintenant, mais il se peut que je devienne dégouté de tout le 'bazar' si ces
Messieurs ne sont
pas sages [The whole affair has nicely made me beside myself the moment I wrote you that I was
excited. It's over now, but it's possible that I get disgusted with all the rubbish if these Gentlemen
are not wise]". A little further on: ils m'ont promis qu'il n'y aurait jamais de friction entre nous
[They promised me that there will never be any friction between us]".
It is quite obvious that the bridges between Bang and Greg-McKerrow were not blown
up. On the contrary! Greg writes to Bang on September 26, 1906: "let us get the tedious 'Out'
out which will be the best way of showing the world that we have not quarrelled". Indeed, the
next year (1907) their editions of two quartos of Ben Jonson's Every Man out
of his Humor
(editors: W. Bang & W. W. Greg) appeared in the Materialien. And
Bang himself went as far as
to publish The Tragical Reign of Selimus 1594 (1908) in the Reprints of Greg's Malone Society.
Greg and McKerrow, on the other hand, continued publishing in Bang's
series.[13]
With the outbreak of the war in 1914, Bang had to return to Germany and did not come
back to Louvain after the hostilities were over. His successor at the university, Mgr. H. De Vocht,
stayed in correspondence with Greg and McKerrow. From 1927 onwards he continued Bang's
series under the English title Materials for the Study of the Old English
Drama. We can hope
Bang's letters to Greg and McKerrow about editorial matters will emerge one day, but even the
one-way correspondence at our disposal makes evident the international importance of the first
Louvain professor of English language and literature.
