At 05:02 AM 7/22/02 -0400, Hiroshi Yamashita wrote:
> I think they should
>find it necessary to see the new edition before their discussions.
>I will then write my own opinion from professional viewpoints.
The new edition has been out for the better part of a year now, and I think
we're starting to digest it.
The editorial procedure for the new ed. comes out of work first published
in conjunction with the 1990 concordance, the relevant materials for which
are reprinted in the Textual Companion. Among other things, the editors
found that most of the corrections flagged in 1590 Faults Escaped were
ignored in 1596. The conclusion: 1590 was proofread with more care than
1596, and therefore ought to be the basis for a critical edition of FQ
I-III -- as it is in the revised Longman ed. published last fall.
My own comments on the new edition appeared in this forum a few months ago,
and can be summed up as follows. The argument for using 1590 as the base
text for FQ I-III is largely derived from the treatment of accidentals, and
where accidentals are in question we ought to prefer the earlier reading.
Unfortunately, the new edition also gives 1590 preference non-accidental
variants, such as FQ 2.6.3.4: where 1590 has "as merry as Pope Ione," 1596
reads "that nigh her breth was gone." To me, the 1596 reading looks like
authorial revision, and ought to be adopted in a critical edition of the
poem. If I had to propose a rule of thumb for editors of FQ I-III, I'd say,
"Adopt 1590 for accidentals, but 1596 for substantives." The new Longman
adopts 1590 for both.
Having said this, the Textual Companion and the Textual Notes at the back
of the new Longman are far and away the best place to study things like
authorial revision and "Faults Escaped." The Textual Notes in the new
Longman are not exhaustive (e.g., they don't record the Poeana
(1590)/Paeana (1596) variations in 4.9.6, 9, and 13, though this
information is given in Hamilton's commentary), but they do give up to date
information on press variations. The table of "Possible Revisions for the
Second Edition" (Textual Companion 278-82) is invaluable; for F.E. there is
also a list of "Errata for the First Edition not Corrected in the Second
Edition" on pp. 277-78.
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David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
East Carolina University Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
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