The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1568  Wednesday, 8 September 1999.

[1]     From:   John Drakakis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Tuesday, 7 Sep 1999 13:31:02 +0100
        Subj:   RE: SHK 10.1563 Re: First Folios

[2]     From:   Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Tuesday, 07 Sep 1999 09:57:07 -0700
        Subj:   SHK 10.1558 Re: First Folios

[3]     From:   Judy Craig <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Tuesday, 7 Sep 1999 11:37:55 -0500
        Subj:   First Folios


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           John Drakakis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 7 Sep 1999 13:31:02 +0100
Subject: 10.1563 Re: First Folios
Comment:        RE: SHK 10.1563 Re: First Folios

My thanks to Gabriel Egan for reminding us of the physical construction
of a First Folio Shakespeare. Of course I made no such assumption in my
use of the term 'facsimile'; I simply meant "to make a likeness of",
which implies an intermediate agency.  I did NOT assume that ink, paper,
binding, stitching etc. were of no consequence or that they are in any
way transparent.

Bluffers' guide definitions of "idealism", especially so misplaced as
they are here, are not really relevant to this debate.

John Drakakis

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 07 Sep 1999 09:57:07 -0700
Subject: Re: First Folios
Comment:        SHK 10.1558 Re: First Folios

John Drakakis wrote:

>As for Jensen's comment on tools and Godshalk's primary-school
>empiricism, we might get a lot further if contributors to the debate
>spoke from knowledge rather than ignorance.

and

>One final point for Mr. Jensen: his ingenious analysis of work avoidance
>procedures (which I take to be a definition of navel-gazing),
>demonstrates a process of work-avoidance all his own.

May I point out to Mr. Drakakis that those comments were made by
another.  I essentially agreed with Hawkes, but cautioned that only with
the perspective of time would we know if the tool was for an age or for
all time.

If I may display my ignorance by quoting R. B. McKerrow's 1924 comment
about the New Bibliography, "And yet we must remember that it is but a
beginning and that new tools may need careful trial."  New Bibliography
tools are challenged in my source for that quote, Laurie Maguire's
SHAKESPEAREAN SUSPECT TEXTS.

I do not accept that it is ever appropriate to ridicule another into not
questioning the usefulness of a tool.  I wish minds like Maguire's,
Michael Warren's, and others had come along a couple of generations
ago.   Nor would I ever suggest anyone not use a tool that was still
useful.  It is up to the conscience and creativity of the scholar to go
where their ideas lead them.

BTW, bad people say things like,

>As for Jensen's comment on tools and Godshalk's primary-school
>empiricism, we might get a lot further if contributors to the debate
>spoke from knowledge rather than ignorance.

Good people say things like,

     I wonder of Mike and Bill have considered the following...

Mike Jensen

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Judy Craig <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 7 Sep 1999 11:37:55 -0500
Subject:        First Folios

Gabriel Egan writes:

>Reproduction always entails intervention. The objection of Hawkes and
>Drakakis is that Hinman chose more than one F to photograph. To wish
>that he had settled on one copy of F while blithely accepting falsified
>paper, ink, and thread in the resultant 'facsimile' is indeed to
>privilege the words above their physical embodiment. And that is
>idealism.

I had not meant to enter this quarrel either, but I thought the whole
enterprise of thinking and arguing was "to privilege the words above
their physical embodiment."  Maybe we should drop Shakespeare altogether
if there is no "idealism" involved and whack each other with fleshly,
bestial Yale editions.  Then, we would not be engaging in any suspicious
activities such as mental cerebrations-only concrete, materialistic,
physical actions.

Judy Craig

Subscribe to Our Feeds

Search

Make a Gift to SHAKSPER

Consider making a gift to support SHAKSPER.