I am surprsed, too, that even then, they drew gender wars style
distinctions, such as
Disputations about Hee Conny-catcher and a Shee Conny-catcher
which take it does not refer to the rabbits?
On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:20 AM, Robin Hamilton <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From: "Jeffrey Side" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> <<
> There has been a new development in the Johnson/Goldsmith debate.
>
>>
>>>
> Just to re-emphasise that there's nothing new under the sun ...
>
> Round about 1567, give or take a year or two, two works were published
> describing the (then) hierarchy of rogues and vagabonds -- John Awdeley's
> _Fraternity of Vagabonds_ and Thomas Harman's _A Caveat for Common
> Cursitors_. (One or the other of these two authors might have been involved
> in an act of appropriation -- Harman in the second edition of the _Caveat_
> snootily corrects Awdeley's definition of Jarkman, refusing to include
> Jarkmen (or forgers of seals) in his list on the principle that they were
> identical to Whipjacks. So it goes.)
>
> When the coney-catching-pamphlet wars were heating up in the 1610s,
> accusations of plagarism abounded (usually accompanied by flagrant acts of
> appropriation on the part of the accuser -- Samuel Rowlandson was especially
> adept at this) but Thomas Dekker cheerfully went on his merry way,
> establishing virtually single-handed the tradition of cant poetry in
> English.
>
> Among other things Dekker did (or was accused of doing by both his
> contemporaries and later scholars) in _Lanthorne and Moonlight_ (1608 and
> subsequent editions) was to "plagiarize" Thomas Harman. What he actually
> did (among various other things, including a weird joke that ends up
> immortalizing Roberdsmen as part of the "old" hierarchy of rogues, Dekker's
> joke gradually transforming over the course of years and still present in
> the latest edition of Partridge's _Dictionary of Slang_) was to add three
> types of rogue from Awdeley to Harman's list, and produce a so-to-speak
> Third Version.
>
> This, in turn, is taken up by Richard Head in _The English Rogue_ in 1665
> -- without acknowledgement, naturally, but Head is drawing directly on
> Dekker.
>
> So Head is a plagiarist of a plagiarist, nah? Except that it's significant
> what he leaves out -- no Upright Men in the 1660s, boyo! -- and his
> "plagiarized" version of Dekker's appropriation of the glossary of cant
> found in Harman's _Caveat_ has a good few terms which aren't recorded before
> and were part of current (1660s) cant, not just the old (1560s) stuff.
>
> And that's even before we get to his involvement in "The Budge and Snudge
> Song".
>
> Just a thot.
>
> RH
>
--
All best,
Catherine Daly
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