The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 26.126 Thursday, 12 March 2015
From: William Blanton <
Date: March 12, 2015 at 12:04:47 AM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: OP
Professor Egan is still on my case.
On March 8,2015, I referred Professor Egan to my 2/22 post, which quoted from Professor Bate. In reply to his citation of the RSC Merchant of Venice, I wrote:
“I have a paperback copy of the RSC "Merchant of Venice” [edited by Professors Bate and Rasmussen].On page xviii, the author of ‘About the Text’ states:
“The Merchant of Venice’ is one of three comedies where the Folio text was printed from a marked-up copy of the First Quarto... The standard procedure for the modern editor is to use the First Quarto as the copy text but to import stage directions, act divisions, and some corrections from Folio. Our Folio-led policy means that we follow the reverse procedure, using Folio as copy text, but deploying the First Quarto as a ‘control text’ that offers assistance in the correction and identification of compositors’ errors. Differences are for the most part minor.’”
I do not know which of the two editors included that paragraph in their edition, but it sure sounds like Professor Bate.
Professor Egan then quotes me as saying:
> Professor Bate and other Shakespearean scholars have
> determined that Shakespeare marked up a copy of Q1
> when he wrote the version of the play that Hemings
> and Condell included in F1.
He then proceeds to castigate me for misquoting Professor Bate, directs me to thank him [Egan] “for the correction,” and instructs me that “acknowledgement of error” is important.
But what is my error? That I claimed that Shakespeare himself was the one who marked up Q1, whereas Professor Bate was not specific concerning the identity of the marker-upper? If so, that is taking pettifogging rather to an extreme. Hemings and Condell state that their friend Will Shakespeare wrote the plays included in the First Folio, and that they had selected the best versions of those plays for inclusion. That’s good enough for me. Why summon a Demonic Compositor from the vasty depths bibliographic studies to inject purely academic uncertainty?
Speaking of “acknowledgement of error.” On 2/26/15, Professor Egan posted as follows:
“William Blanton wonders why his idea about Lancelot’s last name is meeting resistance:
> I speak only of Launcelet's surname as
> Shakespeare has Launcelet himself spell/pronounce
> it during his speech: Iobbe or Jobbe. I do
> not speak of Old Gobbo at all. I neither know
> nor care whether Gobbo is his first or last name.
“That's the problem: you should care, William. You should care because the audience is clearly meant to understand that Old Gobbo is father to Lancelot and that Gobbo is their shared last name. (Unless, that is, you wish to suggest that Old Gobbo’s full name is “Gobbo Jobbe”, which you haven’t yet tried to do and which would meet a host of other objections).”
On 3/1/15 I replied:
“I believe that we all recognize that Shakespeare wrote his plays as scripts to be performed, not as texts to be studied. Members of Shakespeare’s audiences to a performance of The Merchant of Venice would not have heard anyone refer to Launcelet’s father as ‘Gobbo’ or ‘Old Gobbo.’ To the extent that anyone cared about the surname of Launcelet’s anonymous father, they would have assumed it to be ‘Jobbe.’ “
Professor Egan has yet to thank me for this correction, or to acknowledge HIS error. Sauce for the gander.
What’s going on here? I ask for mutually respectful dialog, and this is what I get: something less than dialog and more like rebuke.
Bill