Notes on "Shakespeare and the New Bibliography" - Chapter 4

While printed books inherently provide evidence of printshop practices, since there is no extant dramatic manuscript used for printed copy, bibliographers that wish to reconstruct the kind of manuscript a play was printed from have to rely on circumstantial evidence. This includes the information contained in stage directions, textual corruption, and mislineation (50).

Scientific advances in the 20th century have enabled bibliographic work that was impossible in earlier eras. New and improved photographic techniques have enabled photo-facsimiles of printed books and manuscripts, and new and improved scientific instruments have enabled researchers with access to the original documents to discover more about them than would otherwise be knowable (50).

cf Maunde Thompson Shakespeare's Handwriting. 1916.

cf W. W. Greg Henslowe Papers. 1916.

cf W. W. Greg Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses (1931).

"The confusion of the More manuscript would have made it useless for prompting" (57). Gurr and Stern have elsewhere noted that prompting is an anachronistic term, and Wilson's sense of the duties of a "prompter" in the period may be a bit skewed.

"Prompt-books differ very much among themselves" (58). Amen. Wilson goes on to discuss the divers ways in which a prompt-book acquired annotation for use in the playhouse on page 59.

"In one respect, and in only one, prompt-books are alike: they are all in folio" (60).

The only extant part from an early modern play that has survived is is for Orlando in Greene's Orlando Furioso. This part contains evidence of errors and omissions that appear to have been corrected by the owner of he part, probably Alleyn (60).

"The part of the actor who played the title-role in 'Duk Moraud' survives in a fourteenth-century hand on a margin of an Assize Roll for Norfolk and Suffolk of the second half of the thirteenth century in the Bodleian Library; we have also the part of God from a late text of a miracle play (c. 1570-80) which gives one or two stage-directions" (60).

c.f. J.Q. Adams Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas.

"In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as portion of forty-two lines was called a 'length'" (60, footnote). Wilson cites the OED.

It is unlikely that most, if any, of the King's Men's playbooks were burned in the Globe fire of 1621, as Sir Henry Wotton wrote three days after the fire that 'nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks.' While the Fortune plays did lose their books and wardrobe when that playhouse burned, the Fortune burned at midnight, and the Globe during the middle of a performance, and it is probable that, if anything of value was stored at the Globe, the actors would have rescued it (61 - 62). Of course, if you believe Gurr, the Globe was perfunctory to the operation of the Kings Men by this time, and so it is plausible that they stored their more valuable materials at the Blackfriars.

"The most serious defect in a text supplied by a man like Crane would not lie in its 'general imperfections' but in its general perfection. In tidying up his copy and clearing away obscurities he might sometimes misinterpret the intention of his author and obliterate all chances of recovering his original" (64).

Summary

Extant dramatic documents from early modern London are rare, but they give us valuable glimpses into playhouse practice, which can help us understand how some of the plays came to print. Of particular interest is Wilson's acknowledgement that Crane, as a professional scribe, would have perfected the copy he was working from. As scientific advances in the early 20th century enabled new kinds of bibliographic work, we might also consider the types of advances 21st century has made in determining the future of bibliographic studies.

Making Shakespeare Notes: Chapter Six

The typeface of early modern plays tended to differ when prologues, epilogues, songs, and letters were printed. Prologues, Epilogues, songs, and letters are also often distinguished by titles that set them off from the rest of the text, despite these being generally textually apparent (113-114).

It is not uncommon for early modern texts to simply describe where a song should go, such as in Julius Caesar [4.3], where Lucius plays a song for Brutus (115). This also occurs in Pericles [Q H3b 5.1] and 1 Henry IV [3.1] (116).

When printed in early modern texts, it is not uncommon to find songs printed as appendixes to the plays. This is probably because songs would have been kept separate from the play book, and thus would have been printed separately, or perhaps not at all. It is possible they were kept separate for use by the actors; actors could take the song (accompanied by its music) with them on stage to sing (117).

Prologues, like songs, were also fluid. All's Lost by Lust, and Wonder of a Kingdom, two plays separated by three years and two different authors, have the same prologue. Where several of Shakespeare's plays that do not have prologues speak of prologues as being common components of a play text, Richard III has a prologue written by Heywood for a Queen Anne's Men's boy player (118-119).

"Prologues and epilogues were not part of a unified text, sharing the same rights and lasting qualities" (120).

Prologues and epilogues may have been written for specific, one off court performances, which would have a different flavor than their counterparts for public performance. Surviving prologues for public performances tend to share common themes of at once asking the indulgence of the audience and inviting them to judge it, and
epilogues tend to directly ask their audiences for applause (120-121). These prologues and epilogues were essential features of an opening night performance, but if the play 'passed' its opening night test, would be subsequently dropped from future productions (122).

The character of the prologue appears to have been dressed in a black robe and hold a garland, the symbols of the scholar and the poet. An actor in the company thus plays the role of the author, and by extension transfers the authority of the play to the company (122).

"A play in performance was by no means textually fixed" (122).

SUMMARY:

Textual instability was a key feature of any part of an early modern play text. Songs, prologues, epilogues, and letters would generally not be included with the printed text because they were different pieces of paper from the play book. Likewise, plays were written in parts, and playwrights could take advantage of the custom of parts and cues to create scripted gibberish that would have been apparent in performance, although not necessarily in the company book. The texts of the plays, designed to be performed, were inherently mutable, and thus the texts that we know should not be considered as fixed entities of singular poetic genius.