<snip>
> Tom, thanks for the post. I had meant my reply to be private,
> but that's just as well. The tone and content of your answer is
> such that I will not respond further after today, but I will point
> out a few things. Too bad it is this way. Interesting that you
> feel a quote of Van Dam is "an awful lot of copy," only to post
> more copy.
> > He apparently believes that authors never interlineated their
> >manuscripts
> But his first words were that an "interlineation . . . is meant
> either to add something new, or to correct a mistake . . ."
> That a correction or addition can be authorial goes without
> saying.
Van Dam writes “In l. 245 we have omitted the obvious actors’
interpolation *alas alas*, which, besides, proves to be an addition by
its being interlineated in the manuscript between ll. 244 and 245.” It
seems to me that he judges that *alas alas* is non-authorial by it
being interlineated. I fail to see what makes it so obviously an
"actors' interpolation."
He next writes, “From all these mistakes taken together, but
especially from the nature of some mistakes in these few lines, we may
with certainty conclude that the whole passage 123-270 is a slovenly
transcript. Moreover, the passage cannot be an author's autograph,
because the text contains interpolations, written in one and the same
hand,” which seems to me to be begging the question.
> It is absurd to argue your way, Tom.
Here’s the way I argue, Jerry: I read the paper, I make notes. I read
it again, I make more notes. I check all the references, I make notes.
I read the paper again, I make more notes. I repeat this until I think
I understand what the author is saying. The points that I disagree
with, I try to formulate some kind of coherent argument in an attempt
to demonstrate to others the way I see things.
I don’t really know any other way to argue, and I see nothing absurd
about it. I have been proven to be in error many times, but I look at
this exercise as a learning experience, not as a certified conclusion.
> > and in any case you don't elaborate on his comments
> But I do justify (by argument) the reason why I agree that
> 'captain' is out of place and probably not authorial. That is
> an elaboration.
> > miscounts the meter in line 243;
> > and claims the addition is "a slovenly transcript" because it
> > "contains interpolations, written in one and the same hand."
> Line 243 in the manuscript is too short, as Van Dam says,
> not because of the number of syllables per se, but because the
> tenth syllable is unstressed, or feminine. There is little point in
> arguing such things merely to be contrary.
I’ve already answered this, and I’m not bringing up objections “merely
to be contrary.”
> If a ms. is scribal, the description 'slovenly' is a matter of choice.
> There are many mistakes, certainly. You misrepresent (willfully?)
> Van Dam's comment: he did not say the pages were a 'slovenly
> transcript' because there were interpolations. What he really said
> was, "Moreover, the passage cannot be an author's autograph,
> because the text contains interpolations, written in one and the
> same hand." What he means is that 'non-authorial interpolations'
> appear in the same hand. You prefer to make this opinion seem
> 'almost ridiculous' by misconstruing it. Can't you argue on a
> higher level?
But it *is* ridiculous to argue that a text is non-scribal because
the “non-authorial interpolations” are written in the same hand, since
he hasn’t proven that the “interpolations” are non-authorial. That is
begging the question.
> > The problem with Van Dam's explanation is that it needlessly
> > multiplies entities.
> The need for entities is determined by the evidence. If a single
> agent doesn't explain the evidence, or if common scribal errors
> suggest an alternative,
But these “common scribal errors” are also present in other MSS we
know are autograph.
> added entities are perfectly logical,
Agreed (except for my above objection) up to this point.
> and even necessary before jumping to authorial conclusions
> -- or worse -- before avoidance of debate, which characterizes
> the most publicized view for 90 years; a view with which you
> don't agree.
I’m having trouble following you here.
> I might add that your view of authorial copying multiplies entities.
My “view” of authorial copying—second draft—is but a suspicion at this
point, which causes I have not yet been able to articulate.
> Presumably you came to that view by considering the evidence.
> What evidence? That adduced by Van Dam, Schucking, and
> even myself, according to your e-mail to me. The question
> remains, to be determined by the evidence, whether the copyist
> was the author or a scribe.
> > First we have an author (who apparently, going by your and
> > Van Dam's comments, should never make mistakes or get
> > tangled up)
> Why argue this way, Tom? You waste my time. No one would
> say that but an antagonist of what was really implied.
You imply such when you write, “No clear choice can be made between
author and transcriber . . . . However . . . a scribe may
have . . . .”; “These errors are probably more typical of
transcription . . . .”; “A putative scribe may have . . . .”; “But the
preceding lines . . . could lead a copyist . . . .” and etc. etc.
Yes, a scribe *may* or *could* have *probably* done so; just as likely
an author *may* have, especially when we have examples of it in other
autograph copy, yet you conclude “These examples do not strongly
suggest D as the original author.”
To me, that strongly suggests to me that you don’t think authors
commit those types of errors. And Van Dam’s analysis of lines 235-38
and your repetition of them strongly suggest to me that neither you
nor he think that authors ever get tangled up, which is to me the
simplest explanation of the shortcomings of the passage. Remember
Jonson’s recollection of Shakespeare? “He . . . had an excellent
fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with
that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped.
‘Sufflaminandus erat’ as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his
own power; would the rule of it had been so too.”
> Is Hand D a copy? If it is a copy, is it scribal? If it can't be proved
> either way, then Hand D should not be cited as Shakespearean
> evidence. It hasn't much to do with the silly notion (not mine or
> Van Dam's) that 'authors don't make errors.'
> > then we have a scribe hired to copy only three pages (147 lines),
> You multiply entities with the 'scribe hired to copy only 3 pages.'
> Bad form, according to you.
I’m not the one multiplying entities; I’m constructing a timeline of
Van Dam’s scenario concerning the Hand D addition.
> The scribe has not been identified. Why attribute your mistake to
> me? Further, I report on an issue described by the respected Scott
> McMillin (who corresponded very courteously with me). The question
> of C and D being the same person has not been settled. It has not
> been argued.
Books may not have been written about it, but opinions have been
published, and from what I gather the consensus is that C and D are
different hands. It seems obvious to me: the formation of the letters,
the capitalizations, the shading—they all argue for different hands,
and I’ve never heard an argument that they’re the same from anyone
who’s looked at them.
> That said, there would be nothing inherently unusual
> for a different theatrical personage to copy three pages. It depends
> not on putting words in other mouths, but on the evidence.
> > then the scribe corrects himself, and makes mistakes while doing
> > so without checking himself,
> It happened all the time with scribes and compositors. It is a matter
> of inference and probability.
Here we have a playhouse scribe, Hand C, who copies out a total of 317
lines in five additions. While doing so, he strikes out words and
passages a total of 19 times.
Then we have “scribe” Hand D, who in the process of “copying” a total
of 147 lines in one addition, makes a total of 27 strikeouts and
corrections, most of them while “copying out” More’s speech to the
mob, the most complicated and challenging part of the scene.
Between the two hands, it appears to me it only “happened all the
time” with Hand D, and the number and types of errors in Hand D cause
me to think they are due to an author’s process of composing.
> The passage at 235 is difficult. The
> bibliographical evidence (ink on paper, and as I explain) is
> consistent
> with eye-skip. If it is eye-skip, the restoration is misplaced.
> > and then Hand C, a playhouse scribe, corrects the first scribe.
> Hard to deny that C corrects D. This does not add anything. And
> it would be wrong to assume that anyone involved would not feel
> free to alter the text. Don't deny entities.
Again, I’m not denying entities; I’m setting out a time-line for
Addition II according to Van Dam.
> > It seems to me that if transcription was needed Hand C would
> > have been the person used as a scribe, since he obviously was
> > so used in other added scenes.
> Perhaps you will tell the group how you know when D wrote and
> when C made his corrections. No one else seems to know.
> You are multiplying assumptions.
Coit'nly! C corrected after D wrote!
> > In addition, the type of eyeskip you describe requires that the same
> > word begin and end a section that is dropped, and in trying to fit
> > this particular passage in you have to stretch those boundaries.
> As I have noted, persons (such as yourself) think they grasp
> the concept fully when they don't, even when one has taken
> care in describing it to them. And after several readings!
Sometimes I am slow of study and it takes me more than several
readings. This is one of those times.
> The section that is dropped (as with 'askt' and 'obedienc') will
> only end with the word. The other will be the last word copied
> before the omission. The result of course fits the initial word
> to the resumption, which confuses people. But please, Tom:
> don't admit your confusion.
I don’t mind admitting when I’m confused. How else is one to learn?
> And the boundary is not stretched at all.
Yes, I understand it better now. I *was* confused. However, the
speculation that it happened in Hand D is just that, because as you
point out on page 2 of your paper, we don't have another text to
compare it to, and Van Dam's correction necessitates not only two
errors in a row, but the deletion of a word that appears to be an
example of Shakespearean oxymoronic wordplay that stretches the
meaning of words out of their usual senses: "rebell captaine," which
is the same type as "how ordere shoold be quelld." (Disorder, not
order, is usually quelled.)
> The error happened
> normally, but the restoration was botched because D didn't
> have a Van Dam around to ask him to be careful.
Nor, apparently, did he ever read it over again.
> That kind
> of eye-skip is called homoeoteleuton. When the deceptive
> words each begin a line (such as when aligned in verse) it
> is called homoeoarchton. The difference in that case is that
> either line can be omitted in practice, as Blayney observed
> in the example I quoted.
> I am not an expert on the terminology and I didn't think it
> necessary to hold the reader's hand on the 'prentisses' and
> the 'all' examples, which seem so obvious once pointed out.
The “prenty” example is not at all obvious to me. More on that later.
Nor is the "all" example as cut-and-dried as that in the Dering MS.
> But in the first instance the first line is omitted; in the second,
> the second. These phenomena are very well documented, as
> I tried to show.
And do these examples ever happen when an author is composing or
copying and revising his first draft?
> > Blayney's explanation concerns compositors transposing lines
> > as he sets type, not a scribe with (presumably) the original foul
> > papers on one side and his copy on the other.
> Again, the error is well-documented. Blayney conjectured a
> miscorrection of eye-skip, not an immediate transposition. But I
> know that examples, meant as examples, can be nit-picked.
> > Neither Van Dam nor you comment on line 130 ("a sorry" takes
> > the place of the crossed out "a watrie"), line 194 ("advauntage"
> > takes the place of "helpe"), or line 225 ("he" for "god"), all of
> > which appear to be authorial.
> These are not examples of possible scribal error,
That is my point: they seem to be examples of authorial revision,
which you do not discuss, despite your earlier statement in the “letts
vs” thread that you were attempting to cover all the evidence.
> unless 'sorry'
(I take it you meant to write “unless ‘watrie’ is a misreading,
somehow, of ‘sorry,’” which proves my point that these types of
mistakes can be authorial, even in the process of composing.)
> is a misreading, somehow, of 'sorry' ('wat' for 'sor', perhaps as a
> guess).
No, I just looked at it again; it’s pretty clear. Compare MWW 3.3.33:
"this grosse-watry Pumpion."
> But what proves, in any way, that the scribe could not
> make these changes? If ever there was a theatrical venture of
> many hands, this is it. Further, 'help' or 'watry' may have been
> alterations thought better of. With a transcript, one never knows.
I suppose if “may have been” is your standard, anything is possible.
> Further, the meaningful evidence, as always, is the negative
> evidence, not the positive.
All the evidence is meaningful.
> > Another problem that I see with both Van Dam's and your paper
> > (and with a lot of *More* commentary) is that the arguments are
> > made in a vacuum with nothing or very little more than arguments
> > based on internal evidence.
> I quoted two classical scholars on eye-skip. Others are available,
> but of course they are 'nothing' when nothing will be seen.
No, I meant in context with other examples of EM MSS, such as the
comparison I gave above of the lines/errors of Hand C and Hand D.
> And I began (I know, only 3 readings) with a beautiful example
> from the Dering manuscript.
Yes, it was a good example of eye-skip, which is central to your
thesis, and served well as an introduction. It is a pity that the
tangled lines you say are due to eye-skip in Hand D are not as
beautiful or as clear-cut.
> And that was a hired scribe. This
> kind of 'argument' is a non-starter, don't you think? The point
> was that the long recorded history of eye-skip enables the
> bibliographical inference of eye-skip from the internal evidence
> of interpolation coupled with identical (or nearly so) words properly
> placed in the interpolation and the body of the text. I explained all
> this. There is no vacuum (on my end of the hose).
The vacuum is that you didn’t address whether authors made the same
type of mistakes. We have autograph MSS from the era; are they free
from such mistakes? I don’t think they are. All the evidence you
discuss comes from the lines in question, which is what I meant by no
context.
> > Have you looked at the other manuscript plays to see if
> > they contain the same type of errors and strikeouts that are
> > found in Hand D?
> > For instance, in Thomas Heywood's holograph MS of
> > *The Captives*, there are several such word and phrase
> > substitutions, missing speech headings and word repetitions
> > that you say reveal scribal errors.
> First, there is no doubt that The Captives is in Heywood's hand.
> Second, though Ioppolo claims that the ms. is an example of
> foul papers, I believe it is Heywood's own transcribed copy.
You don’t address my point: there are the same types of errors in that
MS, and as you say, we *know* it is in Heywood’s hand.
In fact, the same types of errors can be found in Heywood’s hand in
the Thomas More MS. See Addition II:
line 2: shall strangers Rule the Roste [yes] but wele baste [it] the
roste
line 5: I lincolne my leder and doll [his] my true breeder . . .
lines 7-8: we are fre/borne and doo take skorne to be [so] vsde soe
lines 11-12: [come on than] then largelye dilliuer speake bullie and
he that presumes to [speak before ye]/interrupte the in this orratione
this for him [capatene]
and so on. Does this make Addition II scribal? Your argument for D
would have it so.
> I didn't claim anything about missing speech headings and Hand
> D. Why say I did?
As you say above, examples, meant as examples, can be nit-picked.
> I explain my reasons for suspecting scribal
> error in some instances, but not simply for substitutions. I do
> not claim that an author would be free of error when copying.
> Remember, my first object was to show that Hand D is a copy.
Any serious attempt to show that Hand D is a copy should consider all
the evidence, including contrary evidence, not just the evidence you
think supports your point of view. You can't just "show that Hand D is
a copy" and then take up the contrary evidence.
> My argument that D is not the author is based on a limited
> number of telling examples.
> Heywood's errors seem to me to be from copying, and many
> of them are kinds similar to those of Hand D. Of course most
> of his alterations were made after the copy was completed,
Only one of the above examples was made after the copy was completed,
the *his/my* substitution. The rest were written *currente calamo*,
just as most of those in Hand D.
> and in a different ink (Ink 2). Many changes in Ink 1 reflect the
> author's privilege of altering his play. But again, there is no
> question of his authorship. Ink 3 is the theatrical reviser, who
> felt no compunction at altering the text.
> I have looked the play over carefully and find no sure examples
> of eye-skip. It looks to be a fairly careful fair copy that has been
> suspected of less simply because of his execrable handwriting.
> Fair copies are usually not slovenly, but errors occur. At line
> 564 there is
> A remarke able raskall, a damnable [raskall, and]
> Which is probably eye-skip from '-able' of a kind that I call
> 'repetition', since the eye trails back, not forward, when a
> previously copied word or phrase is repeated. The error is
> more easily noticed than an omission and is usually fixed
> right away. A more interesting error occurs at 598, which
> I described (conjecturally) on Hardy Cook's group.
> By the way, although I believe Heywood is a candidate
> for the authorship of the Hand D scene (see Schucking,
> who notes that Pollard held that if the author weren't
> Shakespeare he would opt for Heywood). Since that
> author worked alongside the other More playwrights,
> the case is plausible.
Paradoxically, I think Shucking makes a better case for Heywood’s
authorship than he does for a scribal copy.
> However, it is highly unlikely that Hand B is Heywood.
But just above you say Heywood “worked alongside the other More
playwrights” as support for his possible authorship of Hand D. I
suppose you mean to say at other times?
> Nosworthy and Rasmussen make this clear, especially to
> those who have poked around Heywood's work. Ioppolo
> accepts Heywood as B without referring to the naysayers.
Most who have given their opinion say it is Heywood, yet two
dissenters make it “highly unlikely?” I haven’t studied it closely,
but they look very similar to me.
> I guess that's about it. I had hoped Forest of Arden would be
> a good place to discuss this topic. But Tom Reedy's methods
> of misrepresentation and his throw-anything-against-the-wall
> argument get old in a hurry.
I have misrepresented nothing willfully and am always open to
correction. Yes, tough questions do get old; they're not for
everybody, I'll admit.
> I suppose they represent the
> 'nicer' approach, but it isn't hard to see they fail as argument.
I don’t think it is my arguments that have failed here.
> Respected mainstream scholars won't touch groups like these,
> for good reason.
Arden is not a peer-refereed venue and is not meant to be. It is,
however, a good place to hammer out thoughts and ideas and to explore
facets of an argument that might otherwise go unrecognized. I do
realize, however, that some might not appreciate the public exposure
while they’re working out what they thought was a proved proposition.
In my own case, I don’t care that much; I live in a glass house for
the most part.
> Who wants to see his serious work entangled
> by such stuff as the above? Who has the patience to answer
> the tons of nonsense? I sure don't.
My arguments were put forward in good faith. That you choose not to
answer them is one thing; characterizing them as “nonsense” is
another, and one that does not survive scrutiny.
> Because the scholarly process was interrupted by appropriation
> of my article, I had hoped to avert a loss of time before the piece
> got a fair hearing by discussing it where I can. I have no doubt
> that my take on Hand D will be accepted eventually. Good enough.
Yes, well, good luck.
> Tom will continue his examination, I reckon, but it probably won't
> improve much in quality as the quantity mounts. If anyone else
> has reason to discuss the paper I will be happy to respond privately,
> and I will e-mail copies to those who request. I do not want the
> article posted on this group. Sorry. Watry? Authorial? Shakespeare?
Yes, I do plan to review and discuss the rest of your paper, with or
without your participation, and not for your benefit, but for mine.
This is the way I think, which is one of my favorite things to do with
my favorite body part: my head.
It was my hope that you would be able to see the advantage of
discussing your paper on Arden, but one apparently not to be realized.
TR