At 01:24 PM 12/1/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>A scholarly edition can err
>either in inadequately explaining the obscure, or in excessively
>explaining the
>ambiguous. The latter is increasingly a problem with modern editions which
>seek to establish a reading by the "wink and nudge" hint. The work of a
>scholarly edition is quite subtle, since it demands a careful negotation
>of the
>grey area between making scholarship useful and protecting the readerly
>questions which are so crucial to the act of reading -- and both sides are
>very
>important in Spenser, because Spenser depends upon a great deal of material
>which is completely unfamiliar to modern undergraduates, but he also often
>mischievously plays with readerly expectiations.
This is excellent, and for my money, just right. It pinpoints the way this
assignment leads the students to consider, from a different angle, the same
critical and interpretive questions that a standard essay assignment would
engage.
Naming Malecasta, or any character, before the author does, would in my
view be a "textbook" case of intrusive commentary.
David
David Lee Miller
Department of English 543 Boonesboro Avenue
University of Kentucky Lexington, KY 40508-1953
Lexington, KY 40506-0027
(859) 257-6965 (859) 252-3680
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