Shakespeare Electronic Conference, Vol. 2, No. 307. Friday, 22 Nov 1991.
(1) From: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Peter David Seary)
Subj: Re: SHK 2.0306 R: Bowdlerizing
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 22:08:53 EST
(2) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1991 22:08:46 -0500
From: Steve Urkowitz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Subj: Re: SHK 2.0306 R: Bowdlerizing
(1)-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Peter David Seary)
Subject: 2.0306 R: Bowdlerizing
Comment: Re: SHK 2.0306 R: Bowdlerizing
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 91 22:08:53 EST
Re George Moseley's query, "Is Pope outrageous, or was Theobald just
part of an emergent type of scholarship?" there is a fair amount of
discussion of these matters in chapter 4, "Pope and Scholarship: The
Edition of Shakespear" in my <Lewis Theobald and the Editing of
Shakespeare> (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). The discussion is carried
further in chapter 8, "Theobald's Edition: Establishment of the Text
and Principles of Emendation".
(2)-------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1991 22:08:46 -0500
From: Steve Urkowitz <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Subject: 2.0306 R: Bowdlerizing
Comment: Re: SHK 2.0306 R: Bowdlerizing
A quick list of recent publications on how the 18th century chappies fixed
and fiddled Bardolatrously:
Barbara Mowat, The Form of HAMLET's Fortunes, RENAISSANCE DRAMA, n.s. 19
(1988), 97-126; Margareta De Grazia has a book on Malone (I'm without the
title or date, sorry!) [Ed. Note: Margreta De Grazia, *Shakespeare
Verbatim: The Reproduction of Authenticity and the 1790 Apparatus*.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. ISBN 0198117787 PR 3071 D4 1991 -- k.s.];
my piece on the "Growth of an Editorial Tradition" or words to that defect
in Warren and Taylor, *Division of the Kingdoms* (1983), and the Textual
Companion volume to the Oxford Shakespeare by Wells, Taylor et al.
Fixing Shakespearean texts seems to be one of the risks of reading them
at all. For a giddy experience, though, look for Stephen Leacock's
"Saloonio" in various of his collections (I saw it first in LITERARY LAPSES
-1910) where he shows the fix-the-bard syndrome in all its ruddy glory.
After reading that, take a close look at some of the fixings done to 2 and 3
Henry VI in the Oxford edition. Giggle, sigh, and stick close to your
xeroxed quarto/Folio texts.
As ever, Steve Urquartowitz
