On Sun, 1 Dec 2002 10:59:30 -0500 dmiller <[log in to unmask]> writes:
Dear Spenserians,
I'm writing to invite responses to two questions. How would you explain
to a bright but untutored group of undergraduates
a) what a scholarly edition is and why we produce them; and
b) what the purpose is of editorial commentary in such an
edition?
. . . .
For an undergraduate course on Spenser this spring, I will be exploring
these questions with students by examining and comparing models of
commentary in existing editions, primarily of Spenser but perhaps also
editions of other authors or texts if they have a special exemplary
value. I want the students to think clearly about the audience and
purposes of such editions, and especially of the commentary in them.
Then I'll ask them to prepare their own commentaries, probably by working
in teams to comment on assigned cantos of The Faerie Queene.
a.) See "The Reader to Geffrey Chaucer" in the 1598 Speght edition of the
Works of Chaucer. In more contemporary terms, a scholarly edition aims to
extract a "text" from its messy, foreign, multiplicitous historical
embeddedness as a book. Scholars produce scholarly editions to 1)
increase and aid serious readers' access to old books in the absence or
inutility of the old books themselves, 2) to increase the pool of serious
readers, and 3) to increase the pool of scholars. (Which is also to say
they're doing what they do to earn a living and the legitimize and bring
honor to the way they earn their living.)
b.) As others have already indicated, each editor has their own purposes
with commentary. There is what they say they will and won't do, what they
in fact do and don't do, and what others say about what they should or
shouldn't have done.
It might be interesting to look at something very specific, like the
envoi of SC, where there is a long-standing and probably unresolvable
argument about the existence or non-existence of a literary bow to the
author(s) of Piers Plowman. Critical editions and commentaries differ,
sometimes substantially, in how they handle this problem, and they're all
participants in a 400+ year-old canon controversy. It doesn't take much
evidence from Piers' editors' comments to see that the arguments in favor
of a Piers reference in the envoi are probably biased by the editors'
involvement in the 18th-19thC "invention of Middle English" and the need
to legitimize the work they were doing. And for the other side, there is
the equally compelling accusation of bias (since Puttenham at least)
against the native, non-classical plainness of Piers. The ongoing
editorial problem is consequently a paratextual elaboration of the
thematic ambivalences in SC, from the preface onward, which editors will
always be tempted to collapse one way or the other. (There are some old
sidney-spenser threads on this.)
Less involved pedagogical schemes--
Show students a Riverside Chaucer, Skeat's multivolume Chaucer with
apocryphal works, and a 16thC facsimile of Chaucer's works. Ask what the
benefits and drawbacks are for each as companions to Spenser.
Have students read editorial prefatory material from 16thC Chaucer
editions, especially the 1598 Speght:
1) "The Reader to Chaucer" poem that has the ghost of Chaucer praise the
editor for "restoring" him.
2) The bogus "Chaucers Life" that quotes Sidney very selectively on
Chaucer and presents Spenser's completion of the Squire's Tale as an act
of literally inspired channelling rather than creative commentary.
=============================================================
Daniel Knauss - Department of English - Marquette University
[log in to unmask] - http://home.earthlink.net/~faerspel/dpknauss
[log in to unmask] - http://www.riverwestcurrents.org
=============================================================
