Un "Editing" Shak-speare

Author(s): Randall McLeod

Source: SubStance, Vol. 10/11, Vol. 10, no. 4 - Vol. 11, no. 1, Issue 33-34: Books: On and About
(1981/1982), pp. 26-55
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3684530
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 ulrffd4y
Shakfpcar
RANDALLMcLEOD

forMichael Warren

av 19v o koyos
oapXLa
Saint John
veni vidi edidi
Julius Caesar

Keatspeare

In April 1817 John Keats, aged twenty-one-and-a-half years,sailed to

the Isle of Wight to overwhelmhimselfin poesy - his goal announced
the previousyearin "Sleep and Poetry"- to become a Poet bywritingthe
big poem, Endymion:A PoeticRomance.'Among his self-consciousbag-
gage he carried his seven-volume,pocket-sizedShakespeare, newlyac-
quired for the purpose. Just published by Whittingham,thisJohnson-
Steevens edition (but without their textual notes) was the latest in
Shakespeare. Unable to wait til departure for the Isle of Poetry,and
feeling lonely, though in high spirits,he "unbox'd a Shakespeare" for
breakfast,as he wrote his brothers,and imbibed it withTrinculo's salu-
tationfrom The Tempest, "There's my Comfort."2
Though it was heavy for such a lighttraveler,Keats may also have
takenComfortin his 1804 facsimileof Shakespeare's Folio of 1623 - the
"oldest" in Shakespeare - whichhe may also have recentlyacquired. Of
all the playsitwas KingLear his mind was swimmingwith.Its evocationof
the sea and cliffat Dover in Act 4 Scene 6 echoes in his sonnet "On the
Sea," his firstoverwhelmingof thevoyage; he wroteitout forReynoldsin
the firstletterfromthe Isle, and confessed,"I have been rathernarvus-
and the passage in Lear - "Do you not hear the Sea? - has haunted me
intensely."3As Middleton Murryconcluded, Keats had made an irratio-
nal identificationof Lear with the sea.4 This may explain his imagery,
when he wrote,"That whichis creativemustcreateitself- In Endymion,
I leaped headlong into the Sea."5 Whicheveredition of Shakespeare he
was now reading and misquotingin his letters,Keats' underliningsand

Sub-Stance N0 33/34, 1982 26

 Shak-speare 27

marginalia for King Lear curiouslyare found only in the facsimile,of

which volume we shall see more in a moment.
Settlinginto his quarters in Carisbrooke required a ritualact: Keats
constructed something of a shrine by arranging his treasured books
symbolicallywithpicturesby his friend,Haydon. There was the picture
of Milton's daughters, to whom, traditionsays, the fatherdictated the
greatvisions.More auspicious was the preeminentstatusforthe head of
Shakespeare, whom Keats hesitatinglydared to fancyhis "Presidor,"a
portraitthrustinto thishands by Fate and Mrs. Cook, his landlady,soon
afterhis arrival.

Carisbrooke
April17th
My dearReynolds,
Ever sinceI wroteto myBrothers fromSouthampton I have beenin a
and
taking, at moment
this I am abouttobecome forI haveunpacked
settled.
mybooks,put them intoa snugcorner- pinnedup Haydon- MaryQueen
ofScotts,and Miltonwithhisdaughters in a row.In thepassageI founda
headofShakspearewhichI had notbefore seen- It is mostlikelythesame
thatGeorgespokeso wellof;forllikeitextremely - Well- thisheadI have
hungovermyBooks,just abovethethreein a row,havingfirstdiscardeda
frenchAmbassador - Now thisalone is a goodmorning's work- .. .6

Back on the mainland three weeks later, Keats wrote withLear still
hauntinghim.

MargateSaturdayEve
My dearHaydon,
- I supposebyyourtellingmenottogivewaytoforebodings Georgehas
mentioned toyouwhatI have latelysaid in myLetterstohim- truthis I
havebeenin sucha stateofMind as toreadovermyLinesand hatethem.I
am "onethatgathersSamphiredreadfultrade"theCliffofPoesyTowers
above me - yetwhen,Tom who meetswithsomeof Pope's Homerin
Plutarch'sLivesreadssomeofthosetomethey seemlikeMice tomine.I read
and writeabouteighthoursa day.Thereis an oldsayingwellbegunis half
done"- 't is a bad one.I woulduse instead- "Notbegunat at 'tillhalf
done"so accordingto thatI have notbegunmyPoemand consequently (a
priori)can say nothingaboutit.7
Keats as Samphire gathererlocates himselfin a Shakespearean fiction,
fromLear 4.6 again, significantly one of fatheratonementand of trick
perspectives. Edgar, disguised as Mad Tom, has led his blinded, es-
trangedfatherup the imaginarycliffat Dover, whence he conjures up a
dizzyviewof the sea below, and the old man leaps to his death - and to
his senses. Edgar's non-existentSamphire gatherer is half-wayup an
imaginarycliff;in the poet's letter he is Keats himself,at the crucial
beginning,half-wayup the imaginativeCliffof Poesy, his existenceas a
poet in doubt. The mice in Shakespeare are the imagined diminutive
28 Randall McLeod

fishermenon the beach below, but the lettertransformsthem into real,

mousy lines from Pope's Homer read - not by Mad Tom but - by
BrotherTom (whom we willsee again in thisrole); and now Keats seems
himselfto have takenthe place of the fatheron thedizzyheight.Paradox-
icallyKeats' identityhas shiftedto thatof the secure masterwhose prede-
cessors are seen less as fathersthan as dwarfsfrom Keats' own poetic
eminence. In the last twistit becomes now a "littleeminence,"forwhich
the poet, climbingagain, needs high support.A typicallywittyand ironic
descriptionof Keats' calling, its paradoxy is informed directlyby the
dramaticironyof the tragedy,and echoes itsterrifying and never-ending
problem of distance between son and father. As the lettercontinues,a
new fatherswimsinto focus.
ThankGod! I do beginarduouslywhereI leaveoff,notwithstanding occa-
sionaldepressions: and I hopeforthesupportofa HighPowerwhileI clime
thislittleeminence and especiallyin myYearsofmoremomentous Labor.I
remember that
yoursaying you had notions a
of good Genius presidingover
you - I have of late had thesame thought. for things which do halfat
Randomare afterwards confirmed bymyjudgment in a dozenfeaturesof
Propriety - Is ittoodaringtoFancyShakspeare thisPresider?Whenin the
Isle ofWhight I metwitha Shakspeare in thePassageoftheHouseat whichI
lodged - itcomes nearer tomy idea ofhim thananyI haveseen- I wasbut
therea WeekyettheoldWomanmademetakeitwithmethough I wentoffin
a hurry - Do younotthinkthisis ominousofgood?I amgladyousayevery
Man ofgreatViewsis at timestormented as I am -.

That the auspicious rearrangementsof Mrs. Cook's portraitsby her

short-term tenant,and his displacementof the Frenchambassador bythe
English poet to preside at the head of his libraryof Comfortsin a snug
corner should have allowed him to settleat last, and should alone have
been a good morning'swork,testifiesto a dual statusof the Book forthe
uneasy but self-satirizingand hopeful poet: Keats valued the Book not
only for its contentbut also as an icon.
A half year later Keats was sounding deeper in Shakespeare:

FridayJany231rd
My dearBailey,
... MybrotherTomisgetting buthisSpitting
stronger -
ofbloodcontinues
I satdowntoreadKingLearyesterday,
andfeltthegreatness the
of thingup
tothewritingofa Sonnetpreparatory - in mynextyoushallhave
thereto
it...s

Keats had already finishedcopyingout the firstof the fourbooks of

the PoeticRomancefor his publisher; his new interestin Lear marks not
onlya turnfrom"the stretchedmetre"of romance, to quote the Shake-
spearean epigraph to Endymion, but also a new penetrationinto Shake-
speare and an ambitionto writedrama, whichwere the greatgains of the
 Shak-speare 29

mixed achievementof Endymion.In a letterto his brothersGeorge and

Tom the same day, we hear again of the head of a poet and we see the
promised sonnet. (The letterexistsonly in a transcriptionby the inexact
copyist,John Jeffrey.)

Friday23dJanuary1818
My dearBrothers.
... Well!I havegiventheIst booktoTaylor;heseemed morethansatisfied
withit,& tomysurprise proposedpublishing QuartoifHaydonwould
itin
makea drawingofsomeeventtherein, fora Frontispeice.. . . I leftHaydon
& thenextday receiveda fromhim,proposing make,as hesays,with
letter to
all hismight,a finishedchalksketchofmyhead,tobe engravedin thefirst
style& putat theheadofmyPoem,sayingat thesametimehehadneverdone
thethingforanyhumanbeing,& thatitmusthaveconsiderable effectas he
willputthenametoit- I begintoday.tocopymy2ndBook"thus far intothe
bowelsof theLand" - You shall hear whether it will be Quartoor non
Quarto,pictureor non Picture.

... I thinka littlechangehas takenplace in myintellect lately- I cannot

beartobeuninterested or unemployed, I, whoforso longa time,havebeen
addictedtopassiveness - Nothingisfinerforthepurposesofgreatproduc-
tions,thana verygradual ripeningof theintellectual powers- As an
instanceofthis- observe - I sat downyesterday toreadKingLear once
again thethingappearedtodemandtheprologueofa Sonnet,I wroteit&
beganto read- (I knowyouwouldliketosee it)
"Onsitting downtoKingLearonceAgain"
O goldentongued Romance withsereneLute!
Fairplumed syren! Queen!iffaraway!
Leavemelodizing on thiswintryday,
Shutup thineoldenvolume & bemute.
Adieu!foronceagainthefiercedispute,
Betwixt Hell torment & impassioned Clay
MustI burnthrough; oncemoreassay
Thebittersweet ofthisShakespeareianfruit
CheifPoet!& yecloudsofAlbion.
Begettorsofourdeepeternal theme,
WhenI amthrough theoldoakforest gone
Letmenotwander in a barrendream
ButwhenI amconsumed withtheFire
GivemenewPheonix-wings toflyat mydesire9
So youseeI amgetting at it,witha sortofdetermination & strength,though
I
verily do notfeelitat thismoment - thisis myfourthletter
thismorning &
& -
I feelrathertired myheadratherswimming so I willleaveitopentill
tomorrow's post.- . . .o
attestedbyKeats' inscribingthe
That he was "gettingat it"is strikingly
280 Thc oj"Hamlet.
lTra'gedic
That Roinicraonccand Guildcqierne artdead: Whichare roclaime,myvantage doth
Wherellouldwe haueourthankes ? Inniteme,
Hor. Notfromhismouth, Hor-.Of thatI fhallhauealwayescaufeto ljeake,
oflifeto thanke
Had itth'abilitie you: Andfromhismouth
lie neuergauccommand'ment fortheirdeath. Whofevoycewilldrawon more:
Butfincefoiumpevponthisbloodiequeftion, Butletthisfamebe prefintly perforni'd,
You from thePolakewarres, andyoufromEngland Euenwhilesmensmindes arewilde,
Areheerearriued. Giuceorderthatthere bodies l.eftmoremifchance
h1ghon a ftagebe placedtotheview, On plots,anderrorshappen.
Andletmefpeaketo th'yetvnknowing world, bFor.Iet foureCaptaines
Ilow thefethings cameabout. So Ihallyouheare BeareHlamlet likea SoldiertotheStage,
Of carnall,bloudie,andvnnaturall acs, Forhe waslikely,hadhe beeneputon
Of accidentalliudgements, cafuallflaughters To haueprou'dmollroyally :
Of death'sputon bycunning, andforc'dcaufe, Andforhispafahge,
Andin thisvpihot,purpofes miftooke, The SouldioursMuficke, andtheritesofWarre
FalneontheInuentors heads. All thiscan I Speakelowdlyforhim.
Trulydeliuer. Take vp thebody; Sucha fight as this
bFor.Let vs haftto heareit, BecomestheField,butheerelhewesmuchamis.
AndcalltheNobleft to theAudience. Go,bid theSouldiers fltoote.
Forme,withforrow, I embracemyFortune, ExeuntMarching : afterthewhich,a Peale of
I haueTome Ritesofmemory in thisKingdome, Ordenance are of
jot

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30
 283

THE TRAGEDIE OF
KING LEAR.

A~5usPrimus. Seana Prima.

EnterKent,Gloucefler, andEdmond. We hauethishourea confitant willtopublith

A'ent. Ourdaughters feuerallDowers, thatfuturefirife
theKinghad moreaffe&ed theDukeof Maybepreuentednow. ThePrinces,Fhranci&Burgtndy,
SThought
Albany, then Cornwall. Great Riunals in our yodgeftdaughters lone,
Glou.It did alwayesfeeme fotovs: Butnowin Lo nour hae madetheiramorolfbur
thediuifion oftheKingdome, itappearesnotwhich Andheerearetobe anfwer'd.Tell memydaughters
of the Dukes hee valewesmoft,for qualitiesare fo (Sincenowwewilldiueft vsbothofRule,
weigh'd, thatcuriofity inneither, can makechoifeof Intereft ofTerritory, CaresofState)
eithersmoity. WhichofyouIhallwefaydothlouevs moft,
Kent.Is notthisyourSon,myLord? Thatwe,ourlargeft bountie mayextend
Glou.His breeding Sir,hath bin at I
mycharge. haue WhereNaturedothwithmerit challenge.Gonerill,
fo often to
bluth'd acknowledge him, that now I am Our eldeft borne,fpeakefirft.
braz'dtoo't. Gon. Sir,I lone you more then wordcanweild matter,
Kent.I cannotconceine you. Deerertheneye-fight, addlibertie,
fpace,
Glou.Sir, thisyongFellowesmother cold; where-Beyondwhatcanbe valewed, richorrare,
vpon(hegrewroundwomb'd, and had indeide(Sir)'a No leffe thenlife,withgrace,health, beauty,honor:
SonneforherCradle,erefhehada husband her
for bed.: As muchas Childeerelou'd,orFather found.
Do youfmell a fault? A louethat makes breath and
poore, fpeech vnable,
Kent.I dannot wilh the fault vndone, the iffue of it, Beyond all manner of fomuch I loueyou.
being foproper. Cor. What ihall Cordeliafpeake Loue, befilent.
? and
Glou.ButI hauea Sonne,Sir,byorderofLaw,fome Lear. Ofall thefe boundsenenfrom thisLine,tothis,
yeere elderthenthis; who,yet is no deererin myac- Withthadowie Forrefts,andwithChampains rich'd
count, though thisKnauecamefomthing to the Withplenteous
fawcily Riaersan wide-skirtedeades
world before he wasfentfor: yetwashis Mother fayre, e mae ee dy. To thineandAlbanies ifues
there wasgoodfport at hismaking, andthehorfon muftBe thisperpetuall.WhatfayesourfecondDaughter?
beacknowledged.Doe youknowthisNoble Gentle-Our deereft Regan, wifeofCornwall?
man,Edmond ? Reg. I ammadeofthatfelfe-mettle as mySifter,
Ednt.No, my Lord. And prize me at herworth. In mytrueheart,
Glou.MyLordofKent: I findethenamesmyverydeedeoflone:
Remernmber himheereafter, as myHonourable Friend. Onely?hecomestoo(hort,thatI profeffe
Ednm. Myferuices to yourLordlhip. Myfelfe an enemytoall otherioyes,
Eent. I muft loneyou,andfuetoknowyoubetter. Whichthemot preciou uaeof feneprofeifes,
Edmn. Sir,I fhallftudy deferuing. jAndfinde I amalonefelicitate
Glol. He hathbinoutnineyeares,andawayhe hall In yourdeereHighneffe lone.
againe. The Kingiscomming. Cor. Then pooreCordelia,
Andyetnotfo,finceI amfaremylone's
Sennet.EnterKingLear, Cornwall, Alhany, Gonerill,Moreponderous thenmytongue.
Regan,Cordelia, andattlndants. Jiear.To thee,andthinehereditarie euer, f
Lear.Attend theLordsofFrance& Burgundy, Glofter.Remaine thisamplethird of ourfaireKingdome,
Glou.I thall,myLord. Exit. Noleffe intfpaee,validitie,andpleafure
Lear.Meanetimewe (halexpreife ourdarkerpurpofe.Thenthatconferr'd onConerill. Nowourloy,
GinemetheMapthere. Know,thatwehauediuided Although laft leaft;to whofeon loue,
our and
Inthree ourKingdome:and'tisourfaft.intent, TheVinesofFrance,andMilkeofBurgundie,
STo ltakeall CaresandBufineffe frotnourAge, iie hdt'Whtcan youfay,todraw
themt ftrengths, whilewe A third, moreopilent thenyourSifters ? fpeake.
Coulferring onyonger St'-i~.~Ti
SVnharthen'd crawletoward dehth. OurfonofCornwal, Cor.Nothing myLord.
And-you r efl lotingSonteofAlbany, Lear. Nothing ?
qq2 fb'.
ItAt

31
32 Randall McLeod

poem in theblank space in his facsimilebelow the "FINIS" of TheTragedie

ofHamletand facingthe title-pageof TheTragedieofKingLear. It would be
difficultto imagine a more charged emptinessin English literaturethan
here between these monuments. We already know somethingof what
Lear meant to Keats; Hamlet he regarded as the hero of Shakespeare's
clouded-over middle age, and thoughthim more like Shakespeare than
any of his othercharacters.1'At the end of "Sleep and Poetry"Keats had
identifiedhimself,the poet, as the father,his verse as the son; before
Shakespeare it was, of course, he who must be the son, a son prepared,
perhaps by his headlong leap into the Sea, to break the father'ssilence
here of all places, ready to "burn through"and "humbly[to] assay" the
bitterand the sweet.
His movement towards and away from Shakespeare is choreo-
graphed in the structureof the sonnet. Its opening is romanticin topic
and Italianate in structure,with repeated rhymes(abba) in an octave.
This comes to an end withmentionof "Shakespearean fruit."The struc-
ture transformsfromthe predictedsestetintoa Shakespearean quatrain
and couplet,typicallywithnew rhymes;itbeginswitha continuingrefer-
ence to Shakespeare - but now as the Presidor,the"ChiefPoet" himself,
who is one of the begettersof "this"- and Keats thinksagain, and draws
closer- of "oureternaltheme."Withthisrevisionof dictionthe problem
of atonementleaps offthe page.
The sudden transformationfrom Italian to Shakespearean form is
moderated somewhatby echoes in both halves of the poem of the Spen-
serian sonnet withits repeated rhymesand Italianate octave,and of like
featuresof the stanza from The Faerie Queene,but especiallyof its final
hexameter.As theseechoes thusrecallthe Golden-tonguedRomance bid
to be mute in the octave (although the reference there seems more
immediatelyto the PoeticRomance,Endymion, fromwhichKeats had now
we
emerged), may observe that the sonnet'sstructureis at the same timea
dance towards Shakespeare and away. The end of the poem, however,
may seem to tip the scales away from balance and reconciliationof its
various strands,and to liberatethe poet, self-immolatedin the fireof the
father,to his extra-vagantgoal: flightoutward "to" his desire - or less
apocalytpicallyin the revision,flight"at" his desire. But the poet's en-
treatyfordeliveranceand his demand forwingsreceiveno answerhere.
All we see is the clarity with which Keats frames and refines his
supplication.
The ever-problematicdistance from the Presidor may be further
elaborated,however,at some removefromthesonnet- in thecontradic-
torydescriptionsof it in his letterto Bailey not only as "preparatory"
(preparatory,I suppose, to Keats' reading of the play); but also, curious-
ly,as "prologue," in the letterto his brothers.If Keats were not such a
masterof nuance, the latterword mightread likea slip of the tongue: for
itsliteralimplicationis thatthe sonnethas added to the play. By virtueof
responding to its "demand" and offeringLear the sonnet as "prologue,"
 Shak-speare 33

Keats had entered into collaborationwithShakespeare. And if the son

had so helped the father,were the new Phoenix Wingsnot already given
even before they were entreated? This astonishingattitudetoward his
poem and itssolicitationcan now,in fact,be relocatedin one of thesetwo
statesof the sonnet.The titlein the Folio is "On sittingdown to read King
Lear once again." But the titleof the letterin which Keats calls it the
"prologue" reads, "'On sittingdown to King Lear once Again'." Al-
thoughthe latterversiondescends to us onlythroughJeffrey's transcrip-
tion,we now have no reason to doubt the accuracyof itstitle.The easier
scansion of this title line also suggests that a legitimateKeatspearian
variantis involved,and that Keats was not sittingdown to read Shake-
speare's King Lear, but to writeit.12
It is thus literallyand literarilyinappropriateboth to Keats' physical
and psychicinspirationand to all the internal,referentialand contextual
meanings of the sonnet to abstractit fromits exact physicalsituationin
the opening of the Folio icon; for even for Keats to open to Lear in
January1818 was in effectto bid Romance shutup her olden pages. Nor,
as I shall argue presently,ought the poem to be severed fromthe whole
Folio Lear. This treasuredvolume,now extended by Keats' inscription,is
an evolutionof the apprenticeshrinein the snug cornerat Carisbrooke.
That one was dominated by Shakespeare the Presidor; thisnew penetra-
tioninto the head of poetryand into his book suggestsKeats the Insider.
Not, of course, that the problem of the young poet's distance fromthe
Chief of English poetrycould ever be resolved; ratherthatthe dawn of
his new understandingsof poetry would be figured in "new reenact-
ments"of the drama of fatherand son.
Several months before he inscribed the Lear sonnet, Keats visited
anotherShakespeare shrinein whichhe made his mark.Of theirOctober
pilgrimageBailey writes:
Oncewetooka longerexcursion ofa dayortwo,toStratforduponAvon,to
visitthebirthplace We
ofShakespeare. ... inscribedournamesin addition
tothe'numbers numberless' ofthosewhich blackened
literally thewalls:and
ifthosewallshavenotbeenwashed,orournameswipedouttofindplace/bor
someothers, theywillstillremaintogetheruponthattrulyhonoredwall.'3
And when he was, as MatthewArnold affirmed,when we was with
Shakespeare, the making of shrinesby his admirersand familydid not
cease. To theirsister,Keats' brotherGeorge wrote:

Louisville,Feby1825
My dearFanny
... -Mrs K has beenconfined withherfourthGirl,wehopedfora Boyto
namehimafterpoorJohn,whoaltho'so longgonefromus is constantly in
ourminds;hisminiature overourmantelpeiceispartlyhiddenbya hyacynth
in bloom;Shakespeareis nextabovehim,Tomat thetop,Beaumontand
Fletcheron eitherside.Our otherlessvaluedpicturesare Wellingtonand
34 Randall McLeod

Buonapartebetween
thewindows, and theminiature
ofa dogbyHyWyliein
overone of thedoors.- . . 14
mezzotinto
Keats never published his poem, and as far as we know its "public"
consisted of Bailey, his brothers- and especiallyof Fanny Brawne, to
whom, witha hand less exuberant than thatwithwhichhe inscribedhis
Shakespeare three years before, when he began his firstsea change,
Keats signed over his folio (on the title page above the head of
Shakespeare)15

MR. WILLIAM

SHAKESPEARES
as he prepared to voyage to Italy to die. Now, Keats scholars have re-
sponded to his sense of the iconic,because theyoftenworkwithhis actual
lettersand annotations;the general public,however,receivesthissonnet
througha de-iconizingprocess of editorialtransmission.The folio ver-
sion is usuallychosen as copytext.Firstit is strippedof itscontext,which
deprives us of its physicalrelationshipto Lear (and to Hamlet).Further
loss of meaning accompanies its transformationfrom manuscriptinto
print.The date is removed,thoughitcan be fruitfully considereda "line"
of an autobiographical poem;'16 by chance, perhaps, it even scans as
pentameter,and all but rhymeswiththe title(whichalso scans). Its loss
leaves dangling the referenceto "This wintryday" in line 3, whichthus
tends to registeras "any day one sits down to read Lear." No edited
version seems to retain the irregularhalf-linespacing afterthe octave,
symbolicof the chasm that gaped between the closingbook of romance
and Keats' opening understandingof Shakespeare, whichthe words and
structuralmetamorphosisof the sonnet proclaimed. They eliminatethe
evidence of revisionbychoosing the second thoughts("our- " insteadof
"thisdeep eternal theme"). And even if they are thorough enough to
retain the rejected readings in the (usually unread) textual notes, they
have removed the immediateevidence of revisionin the icon - as if the
tensionbetweenthese readings symbolizingthe poet's doubt and certain-
ties were only evidence for constructingthe textand not the textitself.
Editorssubstitutea mere terminusforthevariousestheticfinalitiesof the
layered stages of the poem's deposit.
No editorseems to give a hintof theunderliningsof the facsimiletext
ofLear, whichmaybe essentialglosseson whatKeats meantwhen he said
"reading"and "again" in his title.Keats read Lear withhis pen, notjust his
eyes, projecting,it seems, his own mental landscapes into it,
 Shak-speare 35

Iegan I haoue
goodhope

fway
fwieet
and allegorizinghis life by it - as this night,like many,

Enter Edgar, and Foole.

Edg. Fathom,andhalfe,Fathomandhalfe; ooreTom.

Come notin heereNuncle,here'sa piri,, hepe i
,Foole.
me, helpeme. :

when he sat up nursinghis brotherTom, who had been withhim at the

Cliff,reading lines from Pope's Homer, and was now at the verge of
death byconsumption.Again and again we see thatartand lifeare whole
cloth for Keats. This is so not only for his own life,but forthe master's.
Shakespeare, he expounded, led a life of allegory; his works were the
commentaryon it.The editingand publishingof Keats proceeds as ifthis
integrationof art and life,were not so, or were incidental;editorshave
elevated textfromcontext,extractedword fromflesh,and redeemed the
poem from the host of its meanings. Laboring with artifice,Keats is
delivered of the artofficial.
In a rich letterto his brotherGeorge and sister-in-lawGeorgiana in
1819 - one final quotation - Keats draws togethervarious strands
pertinentto thisdiscussion.He begins witha referenceto the tasselswith
whichGeorgiana had rigged the famous portrait:

sundayMornFeby14 -
My dear Brother & Sister . . . I am sittingoppositethe ShakspeareI
broughtfrom theIsle ofwight - and I neverlookat itbutthesilktasselsonit
giwe me as much pleasure as the face of thePoetitself- exceptthatI do not
knowhowyou are goingon
... they are veryshallowpeoplewhotakeeverythingliteralA Man's lifeof
anyworth is a continualallegory - and very feweyescan seetheMystery of
-
hislife a lifelikethescriptures, figurative- whichsuchpeoplecan no
36 Randall McLeod

moremakeoutthantheycan thehebrew Bible.LordByroncutsa figure-

butheis notfigurative
-
Shakspeare a lifeofAllegory;
led hisworksare the
comments on it -

... thereis anotherextractor two- one especiallywhichI will copy

tomorrow - forthecandlesareburntdownandI am usingthewaxtaper-
whichhas a longsnuffon it- thefireis at itslastclick- I amsitting
with
mybacktoitwithonefootratheraskewupontherugand theotherwiththe
heel a littleelevatedfromthecarpet- I am writingthison theMaid's
tragedywhichI have read sincetea withGreatpleasure- Besidesthis
volumeofBeaumont& Fletcher- thereare on thetabltwovolumesof
chaucerand a new workof TomMoorescall'd 'TomCribb'smemorial to
Congress- nothingin it - Theseare trifles - butI requirenothingso
muchofyouas thatyouwillgivemea likedescription however
ofyourselves,
itmaybe whenyouare writing tome- CouldI see thesamethingdoneof
anygreatMan longsincedeaditwouldbea greatdelight: as toknowinwhat
positionShakspearesat whenhe began 'To be or notto be"- suchthing
becomeinteresting fromdistanceoftimeorplace. .. .17
When we sit to read Keats' sonnet in Shakespeare's folio we sense the
immediacyof his body, the position in which he sat, conveyed by the
writing,the literaland literaryposture in one coherentbody whichis his
text(and theirtext).Nor can itbe an accidentthatKeats submittedhimself
to the difficultyof reading Shakespeare in a version unredeemed by
editors. If not them, then, whom could Keats have thought to find
presidingthere,but Shakespeare himself?

Textin theAge ofPhotographic

Reproduction

Our broad biographicalvisionof Keats has come to a sharp focus on

questionsof editing.Withfurtherdevelopment,the focuswillbe readyto
shift,as the titledid promise,to Shakespeare.
If I have not seemed to speak graciouslyof Keats' editors, I must
make clear thatI do notdoubt theirpoeticappreciation,technicalskillsor
devotion.The workof Rollinson the lettersand now of Stillingeron the
poetry make Keats one of the English writersbest served by editors.
Rather mydisagreementstemsfrom-whatI thinkmustbe our different
perceptionsof technologicaltransformations and of theireconomic and
sociological implications.Open before me on the desk is Walter Benja-
min'silluminating"The Workof Artin theAge of MechanicalReproduc-
tion."'8 He makes me thinkthatreaders - or shall I call us "consumers"
of literature?- must reconceive the statusof textin the era of photo-
graphic reproduction.
In the age of letterpress,fromthe cradle of printingto thiscentury,
when photo- and photo-electronictechnologyis transformingit beyond
recognition,textualtransmissionfrommanuscriptto printor fromprint
 Shak-speare 37

to reprintinvolved an approximatelylinear processingof text;'' it was

read (absurdly)bitbybit,or (semantically)phrase byphrase,leftto right,
line by line; and rememberedin these small unitsby a compositor,who
reconstituteditin an arrayof types,fromthe facesof whicha new version
of the textwas eventuallyprinted.Such processingis atomistic,sequential
and linear; but the textualobjectexistsas a simultaneouswhole,a thingin
itself- but a thing- however traditiondictatesour unravellingit. The
atomisticand linear processing of the book is not a natural way to go
about textual reproduction,though it is second-nature,as it followsthe
way we are taughtto read and write.Type-by-typecompositionderives,
rather,froman arbitraryprinting, technology.It constitutesan immense
bottleneckin reproduction,in which the textis exposed letterby letter,
face by face, to modernization,graphic restyling,random error, and
common-sensetinkering,much of itgeneratedbyattemptsto make sense
of the copy only on the scale of the phrase held in the compositor's
memory,and to respond to it within the limitationsof the printers'
founts.The bottleneckboth slows transmissionand introducesits own
turbulencein the flowof text.Some aspectsof text,however,are revealed
only when it is conceived in larger or integralunits- as an icon, or, as
typographersoften rhapsodize, as architecture.
Since the reprintingof a book required the re-compositionof its
entiretext,it is understandablethateditorsthemselvessaw transmission
as an occasion for re-composition(to use the word in a differentsense).
Of course,editinghas itsown extensivetraditions,whichrationalizetheir
behavior; all I wishto suggestbylinkingitwithtypesetting is thatediting
is consonant withthe means of physicalreproduction,and maybe influ-
enced by it.
The status of the book in the age of photographicreproductionis
quite altered. Beginning over a centuryago photofacsimiles of Shake-
speare's earliesteditions20 startedto bypass the compositorialand editori-
al bottlenecksbetweentextualevidence and consumer,and to presentthe
authoritativetextsverymuch as theyappeared to Shakespeare's contem-
poraries. Michael Warren perceptivelycalls thisthe existentialtext,the
existenceof which preceeds its essence. For two centuriesreaders have
known littleof Shakespeare but the essentialtextfashionedby editorial
tradition,and ithas effectively usurped the priorityof existence.It would
be naive to claim thatphotographyhas no "essential"bias of itsown, but
arisingas itdoes afterthe establishmentof all-pervasiveediting,it simply
and irrevocablydetaches the text fromthat tradition.However Shake-
speare's contemporarieslooked upon his textis difficultto say; but forus
to witnessthe vast differencebetween the evidence of textconveyed by
photofacsimilesand what stands revealed as editorialrumorsand irrele-
vant improvementsof it, is immediatelyto unedit Shakespeare.
Thus the camera anchors our perception of Shakespeare's text in
historicalevidence untrammeledwithideal projectionsof its meanings.
(Perhaps de-trammeled is more apt, as our education inclinesus to look
38 Randall McLeod

upon the existentialtext as stripped rather than merely naked.) The

camera does not correct errors, real or imagined, and there is much
noise; fortheseventeenth-century textsoffersomethingof a riledroad to
formulato separate
learning.But in art therecan never be a satisfactory
noise frommessage or to detecterror.Such speculationsare alwayspart
of "the beholder's share," and a reader who surrendersthis individual
activityto theinstitutionof editingforgoessomethingessentialto esthetic
and historicalexperience. In post-medievalcultureat least, the relation-
ship between art and institutionsis exceedinglyproblematical.Readers
who willnot deviate fromthe Truth to the evidence on whichit restsrisk
becoming lost in editorial concepts masking as percepts. Our editorial
traditionhas normalized text; facsimilesfunctionratherto abnormalize
readers. Like Keats.

In the firsthalf of thiscentury,English criticismseems to have been

characterizedby an increasingneglectof textualcriticism.The creation
of photofacsimilesdid not bringabout the revolutions,even in academic
criticism,of which it was capable. This need not whollysurprise us, as
many Renaissance scholars functionat some distance fromeditingcon-
temporarytexts,and are tied, moreover,to studentsforwhom popular
editions are traditional.In fact the traditionof editing Shakespeare is
largelymaintainedby pedagogy, in whichthe teacher'srole mediatesthe
students'confrontationwithart,and shapes itaccordingto variousintel-
lectual and social paradigms, which impose ideal order on recalcitrant
facts.
With the mention of photofacsimilesof the artefacts,however, I
have touched onlyon one phase of the impactof photographyon print-
ing. Critical journals like the one before you depend on the com-
parativelyrecentinventionof printingbyphoto-offset;a page in thisfor-
mat can be created by pasting together typeface,photostatsof one's
own research documents (a Keats manuscript, for example),
-o c and then this
is ,,'-~jl
assemblage printedphotographically just the sa aas ,page of type-
a
face. Like Swift'sAcademicians of Lagado, who spoke not words,but the
things themselves,modern criticsstand on the verge of a syntax of
concrete ideas, which may endow English criticismat the end of the
centurywithan awareness of the iconicityof text,whichcriticismlargely
neglectedat the beginning(though Dada was declaimingiton all fronts).
Simple laws of economic and culturalevolutionsuggestthe new critical
direction,forvalues trailin the wake of technologicalalterationsof basic
media. Not thatthisfactmakes a shiftof criticalawarenesstowardiconi-
citytranscendentlyright,but such a movementseems now historically
inevitable,whateveritsown bias; and itcan compensateforthe pervasive
bias of the pre-photographicage of transmissionand of the traditionof
editorialand compositorialmiddlemen it fostered.
 Shak-speare 39
Shakestext

The dread voice past,let us returnbrieflyto Keats' textand contextto

ask what "King Lear" means in the titleof his poem, and so home in on
questions of Shakespearean editing.
In its foliocontextthe phrase reads mosteasilyas an abbreviationof
the titleopposite. But "King Lear" happens to be the exact titlefrom
Keats' Whittinghamedition,whichmay have been the onlyShakespeare
text used on the Isle of Wight. If, as may be possible, Keats' sonnet
interposesbetweenhis having read onlythe modern editionand his first
turningto the folio TragedieofKing Lear, then we may observe that the
sonnetis preparatoryto a reading of a Shakespearean play vastlydiffer-
ent from the one Keats had come to know. This does not answer the
question of what Keats intended or experienced in his phrase "King
Lear" - nor is thatquestion even to be answered here - but it warnsus
that the titlecovers a multitudeof texts,and raises the embarrassing
question of whethereven our own use of "King Lear" has veryprecise
meaning to us.
If we compare them,we see thatKeats' twotextsare decidedlynot the
same, not least in their discrepant titles.Besides the modernizationof
spelling,dictionand punctuation,changes in metre,conjecturalemenda-
tion,relineation,and all that that we must take for granted in editorial
tinkering,thereis somethingelse thatdifferentiates Whittingham'sLear
fromthe folio's.Like all modern texts,Whittingham'sis an eclecticcon-
flationof the foliotextwitha quarto publishedin 1608, called TheHistorie
of King Lear..., which differsfrom it greatlyin characterization,the
mutuallyexclusivepresence and absence of episodes and even of scenes,
strikingdifferencesin diction,beginningwiththe titleand extendingto
the assignmentof the last speech - to Edgar in F, to Albanyin Q and in
the Whittinghamtext,though the latterusually prefersF readings. Al-
lowing for the surface blemishes and irregularitiesto be expected in
seventeenth-century dramatictexts,we can say thateach of the versions,
TheHistorieand TheTragedie,is completein itself.Simply,ieachhas itsown
distinctlydifferentiatedmoral and estheticnatures. This factis scarcely
knownin Shakespeare criticism,because even scholarshipis largelybased
on eclecticconflations,like Whittingham'sedition,and veryfew Shake-
spearians bother to take each substantivetextin itsown write- read it,
thatis, withoutthe prejudice that it is fragmentaryevidence of a single
lost uriginal.21
This would scarcelydo in Bible criticism,wherea differentattitudeto
the Word prevails; conflationis staunchlyresistedin such multipletexts
as Genesis 1 and 2, which seem to tell Creation twice,and the four holy
gospels, which are not whollyconsistentwitheach other. Even if those
who hold for conflationcould prove that all the lines from each text
which are conflatedby the editors are Shakespeare's, theystillhave no
basis forconflation;forconflation,by attendingto content,muddies the
40 Randall McLeod

crucialquestion of form.(God maybe the authorof male and female,but

theirconflationwould be obscene.) It has recentlybeen argued thatthe
Lear quarto represents an early draft,and that the folio representsa
revisionfor staging. If this is true, then conflationinexcusablyjumbles
stagesof estheticdifferentiation, and createsan editorialstandard above
art. Editing promises the esthetic,but deliversanesthetic.
However we explain the originsof Q and F, the crucial textualfactis
their existentialdifference;and the crucial sociological fact is that the
firstfact is ignored. However it arose, the form of the editorial Lear
medleysimplydoes not reston textualevidence. It is true thatthe mind-
numbing collations of scholarlyeditions endeavor to root each cruxin
textual evidence, but as for the shape,it persistsmerelybecause of the
weightof its own tradition,which arose a centuryafter Shakespeare's
death, and - not insignificantly - because it is estheticallypleasing. (In
fact, it is betterthan Shakespeare's substantivetexts:it outsells them.)
Withwhatdegree of consciousnessof the textualproblem Keats took
up the folio, I doubt we can be sure. Certainlyin his use of the folio
Troilus,he encountered a reading at 3.3.226 thatmade sense to him,but
was not in his modern edition - it followed the quarto here, which I
gather Keats did not know about - and he queried the arbitrarinessof
editorialbehaviour. At 1.1.39 he attackeda "hocus pocus'd" emendation
(which is the reading of his Whittinghamedition).22If in Troilushe was
aware of the role of the textualeditor,thenperhaps so inLear. But even if
thereis onlya littleevidence of his sophisticationin textualtheory,there
is stillthe general factof Keat's sure poetic instinct,thatbroughthim to
the substantivefolio and rooted him there,surelyfor some strongpur-
pose, as the 1623 text is not easy labor. And there is also the graphic
evidence Keats leftbehind in it of his meticulousreading.
If we look at his markingson the firstpage of the folioLear, whichis,
again, the onlyLear texthe marked,we see he leftan extensiverecord of
his attentionto details, most of which happen to be variantin Q. Keats
would not likelyhave known of thisvariationpreciselyas we do, but he
would have drunk in itseffectwhen he read Lear in the eclectictradition
of his Whittinghamedition, as in the example, just mentioned,of the
varying assignment of the last speech. "Vnburthened crawle toward
death" at thebottomof the firstcolumn of TheTragedieis partof a section
of fiveF linesthathas no counterpartin TheHistorie(here quoted afterF).

all CaresandBufineffe
To fliake ourAge,
from
Conferring
tlhem whilewe
on yongerArengths,
crawletowarddeath. Our fonofCornwal
Vnburthen'd
AnYduournoe flo of
lingSonCe Albany,

willto publifh
We haue thishourea conftant
Our daughtersfeuerallDowers,thatfutureftrife
Maybepreuented now. ThePrinces,Franci-8Burgundy,
GreatRiualsin ouryodgeftdaughters loue,
 Shak-speare 41

To fhake
allcares
andbufines
ofour
fiate,
themonyonger
Confirming yeares,
Thetwogreat Princes
Franceand
Burgxudy,
Greatryuals
inoiryoungef daughters
loue,

Next, Keats marked one F line here.

(Since now we willdiueftvs bothofRule,

IntereftofTerritory,CaresofState)

The whole parenthesisis not present in Q. All the followingmarked F

passages exhibitvariationfromQ.

11 found.
As muchas Childeerelou'd,orFather

much
a childereloued,or
father
friend,
;
Withthadowie rich'd
andwithChampains
Forrefts,
Withplenteous andwide-skirte ades
Riuers,

With wideskirted
forrells,and
fhady meades,

I1Onelythecomestoofllort,
onelyfhecamc hort,

l'Thenthatconferr'donlGonerill. Now ourloy,

Altlhoughour laftand leafi; to wholeyongloue,
TheVinesofFrance,andMilkeofBurgundie,
Strie W-hatcan U-y, to(ldaw
toiitce-"-A
A third, thenyouryo?
moreopilent ? fpeake.
Sifters

on Gonwrsll,but
Thenthatconfim'rd nowourioy,
in
Although leafr ourdecre
thelait,noc louc,
Whatcanyoufaytowina third,moreopulcnt
Thenyourtillers.

And so Keats' annotationcontinuesforthetwodozen foliopages, withno

less diversitybetween Q and F.
To ground mysurmisesabout Keats' readingsofLear in an annotated
quarto would be ideal. Q was extremelyrare in Keats' time,however,and
was not available in facsimile.There seems to be no evidence Keats knew
of it; but ifhe had fallenupon it ratherthan F, it is inconceivablethathis
discriminatingunderliningwould not have picked out phrases unique to
that version,as in the famous mad trialscene in 3.6, for example; and
would have shown thereby,that his understandingof Lear is radically
differentfromours, who depend on the editors and on conflation.
The only issue that can concern us here, therefore,is actual differ-
ences betweenF and Keats' Whittinghamedition.I havejust argued from
42 Randall McLeod

an estheticpoint of view that cruciallythe folioformcannot be found

there - but the reader may find questions of contentmore persuasive.
Now, it happens that everypassage marked on the first-folio page is in
Whittingham'sKing Lear; this is understandable, because a conflated
edition tends to pick up whole lines unique to eitherversion,and, when
the textsoffervirtuallythe same reading withminorvariants,to choose
thoseof F. The lastquotationdoes, however,expose theeclecticeditor,as
he opts for Q variants.Here is the Whittinghamreading:
Than thatconfirm'd on Goneril.- Now,ourjoy,
Although last, least;to whoseyounglove
the not
The vinesof France,and milkof Burgundy,
Striveto be interess'd:whatcan yousay,to draw
A thirdmoreopulentthanyoursisters?Speak.

The italicizedwords are introjectedinto the basicallyF textfromQ,

thoughthe F readings- respectively"conferr'd,""our" and "and" - are
not problematic.Those in the second line are especiallyinteresting,as
theybelong to the question of Lear's "deere loue" forCordelia in theirQ
context; in F, where the "yong loue ... of France, and ... of Burgun-
die" is the immediate issue, however,Cordelia is Lear's "last and least,"
ratherthan "last,not least." Whittingham'seditionconfoundsthese con-
textualmeaningsbyinsertingQ's "not"beforetheQF "least,"whichword
thereupon ceases to indicate the physical or political slightnessof the
heroine (whichitmaysignifyin F), and substitutesforither greatstature
in her father'slove (as in Q) or in his "joy"(as itregistersin Whittingham).
This is a smallbut typicalexample of the strongswingsof literaryand
dramatic response that hinge on even the small questions of diction in
eclecticediting.If we thinkthatquestionsof meaning at thislevel are not
verysignificant,we will have to argue it out with Keats, whose variant
manuscriptsof the Lear sonnet testifyto his continual adjustment of
diction in just such small, but meaningful,details.23
I chose to quote this single set of variants from Q, F and Keats'
modern edition because they are the clearest example, in the opening
where Keats wrotehis sonnet,of an F reading thathe was taken by,but
whichhe would not have been able to findin his Whittingham.One can
see withoutfurtherevidence, that an argumentcould be made for the
distinct"folioness"of Keats' Lear at thispointin his growingunderstand-
ing of Shakespeare, and the importanceof thisconceptin our response to
his title,his sonnetand his collaboration.Also, we mustbear in mind that
if Keats said he surfaced fromEndymionwiththe abilityto read Shake-
speare to his depths,his new perceptionmay have come in part fromhis
penetrationinto his folio, which unedited Shakespeare as Keats knew
him frommodern editions.
Anothereditorialfunctionis to erase virtuallyall seventeenth-century
punctuations,read the text (modernized and conflated) according to
sense, and to repointby modern standards.Editorsargue thatthe print-
 Shak-speare 43

er's punctuationwas a compositorial discretion(or indiscretion), and

doesnotnecessarily oraccuratelyrepresent Shakespeare's to
pointing the
for
degree, example, thatthe printer'sdiction represents theauthor's.
This is likelyan accurateassessment;but it does not followthatthe
punctuation is notpartof theevidence,thatitmaynotbe partlyShake-
spearean, thatitlacksinterest
or as intelligentcontemporary readingin
itself.
Lestwe suspectthatmeaningdoes notgovernin a thingso smallas a
comma,itis worthwhile to giveourselvespause byobserving thatKeats
actually"stood uponpoints."Even in hisproseunderlining in
(as Hazlitt's
on
essay Lear), but most in
strikingly his sensitive
markingof Spenser,
and
Shakespeare Milton, he wasgiven lifting penatmajorpunctua-
to his
tionand evenat commas.24 Someliftings maydisclosemerelya need for
ink, butmost of them seem ofliterarysignificance.Myimpression is that
they often expressKeats'sensitivity to metre (especiallycaesura) and to
rhetorical pauses,whichtheypunctuate.As onlya verybroadsampling
could advancethisbeyonda guess,it maybe enoughhere to adduce
severalexamplesofKeats'liftedpen at punctuation thatis clearlyirregu-
larbynineteenth- and twentieth-centurystandards.Notethe"intrusive"
commasin thesestarredfoliolines(No suchcommasare tobe foundin
Whittingham.):

Gent. There is meanesMadam:

* Our fofter
Nurfeof Nature,is repofe,
The which he lackesTli.'t to prouoke in him
Are many Simples operatiue, whofego wer-
Wiclofe thieeye ofAguifl.
Co-rd.All bleftSecrets,
Allyouvnpubliih'd oftheearth
Vertues
Spring withmy teares; be aydant,and remediate
In theGoodmansdefires:feeke,feekeforhim,
* Leafthisvneoltern'd
ra,lcediffoluethelife
That wantsthemeanesto lcade it.
--CI~II- _, I---Ilr -c' '

Glou. The trickeofthatvoyce,I do wellremember:

i't nottheKing?
Lear. I, eu.eryinchaKing.
WhenI doftare, feehowtheSubiecquakes.
I pardon that rrans life. Whatwasthycaufe?
Adulter? thouflualt notdve: dyeforAdultery?
No theWrengoestoo't,andthefmall
r-iledFiye
tc rin myfjht. Let Copulationthriue:
44 Randall McLeod

These commas, divide subject and object; as these skeletal sentences,

show they,are grammaticallyinappropriate:

Our nurse,is repose.

Lest rage,dissolvelife.
The trick,I remember.
But in theirfleshedcontextsthe commas can workrhetoricallyas pauses,
and Keats' pauses at them may representsomethingof his actual intona-
tion of these folio lines. Whatever its authority,the folio punctuation
made its point on one of Shakespeare's most sensitivereaders. Once we
notice how thoroughlyKeats responded even to the oddities of Renais-
sance punctuation, we surely must confess that we would never have
guessed how he read the text,ifwe had not seen the tracesof it fromhis
pen. How this man particularlyunderstood "King Lear" and "reading"
- those words fromhis title- are vitalmysteriesthat we have not yet
grasped. But where can be begin? - not in any edition of Keats and
Shakespeare yetproduced. Not to understandthese issues is to miss the
pulse of theirshared blood.
I have concluded Keats' grand search for masteryof the "eternal
theme" in a comma. As I thinkKeats is a literalistof the imagination,the
defense of hisartand lifecould arise even fromso seeminglyinsignificant
a detail; and ifI were going to offeryou a peroration,I would notblush to
startit at this point.
In approaching Shakespeare slowlythroughLear, and Lear through
Keats, I hoped to evoke the dynamicsof a literarytradition,on whichaxis
of genius thequestionsof editingshould be seen to turn.I commentedon
printingtechnologyto suggestwhythis perceptionof editingwas alien,
and whynew technologymay soon make it familiar.In both sectionsof
the paper I have not hidden myown values, but I have triedto show that
theyneed have littleto do withthe argument.
If thisapproach has at all succeeded, itmayhave done so at the costof
makingLear seem the onlyShakespeare thatneeds unediting.In closing,
then,I would like brieflyto offerthree various perspectiveson editorial
obscurity,which may in sum suggest how pervasive the darkness is.
Shakespeare's text is all before us.

Textgate

Spellbound:Withinthe last half centuryconservativeeditinghas fo-

cused on the "old-spellingedition." The aim was to respectthe so-called
"accidental"featuresof earlyeditionsand to preservethemin re-editions
in the hope occasionally of seeing through the "veil of print" to the
underlyingmanuscript,now lost,where greaterauthorityresided. So far
so good. But the great problem is thatthe "accidentals"were not under-
 Shak-speare 45

stood in a physical sense, but were interpretedthrough the atomistic

abstractionof spelling,which,oddly, seems never to be defined by old-
spellingeditors,althoughtheirpracticecan be defended onlyon thebasis
of such a definition.So far so bad, for abstractionfounders on the
actualitiesof the concrete text.It can be shown that,as manyof the old
kerningtypesortscould notbe set nextto each otherwithoutfoulingand
breaking,combinationsof these typestended to be avoided in composi-
tion. In such problematicsettingsother typeswere required to mediate
them, types which were compatible with the problematickerns,which
extend typefaceoffthe edge of the typebody.In some founts,forexam-
ple, k followedbythe ligaturein long-sand p willbreak boththekand the
long-s,hence -

Shaee-oJeare
- in whichthe typographicallyexigente and the hyphen are not neces-
sarilypart of the spelling.

kerns

This space must be filled

kerns types whose face is
kernswith
without descenders: eg.
spaces, an e,a hyphen,etc.,

There is more good news. Types can kern vertically.

ta
Comostion asc uertfo
cotf &e
.V
afV&ce c13
C le, a
c?N'fs,
Compositionwiththesetypesmustavoid clashes of ascenders frombelow
46 Randall McLeod

and descenders fromabove when one or both kern. One of the obvious
compositorialexpedients in Shakespeare's time,in the days beforeortho-
graphy,was to add a terminale to a word in one line to bringitstypesout
of the verticalline of conflictwithtypesin adjacent lines. Interchanging
upper- and lower-casesettingscould also oftensolve such problems,by
adjustingthe alignmentas a functionof the different(horizontal)set of
the substitutetype,byeliminatinga descender or ascender,or bymoving
itsrelativepositionin theshape of theletter.Now, foreditorsto transtype
an early text from a kerning fount to the non- or minimally-kerning
fountsof modern re-editionsis preciselyto hide the equivocal relation-
ship of concrete typesettingand abstractspelling in the early text.The
editorial criterionof spelling does not allow us to distinguishin the
reprintthe materialcausalityof the copytextimage. Conservativeedito-
rial practicecannot be founded on the quicke-sand of spelling.25

Concordance:Theoreticallya concordance is simplyan edition of a

work,the shape of whichderives not fromitsinherentliteraryform,but
froman extrinsicliteralsequence. Now thatcomputersare employed in
editing,concordances tend to be made duringeditorialprojectsfortheir
own internalguidance. In the past,however,the concordance has been a
derivativeof an existingedition. Concordances are useful because they
locate examples of diction relevantto thatof some crux editors may be
strugglingwith,and so familiarizethem with.authorialusage on a large
scale. They are especially valuable for authors who are outside of stan-
dard English, like Shakespeare who came before it, and who helped to
formit,or writersin dialectlike Burns,or idiolectlikeJoyce.The scholar-
ly usefulnessof concordances declines abruptlywithany incompletion,
or, if theyare selective,withany fuzzinessabout the basis of selection.
There is no completeconcordance forall of Shakespeare's substantive
texts,though people talk as if there were. At any momentthislack can
leave editors in the awkward positionof possessingthe littleknowledge
that is a dangerous thing. Now being published is a massive, multi-
volumed computerizedComplete and SystematicConcordance totheWorksof
WilliamShakespeare,really a number of concordances; and the one-vo-
lumed HarvardConcordance toShakespeare,whichis the main concordance
of the former,26 and claims to offer"the firstcomplete and reliable one-
volume concordance to all the playsand poems of Shakespeare." Unfor-
tunatelyno rigor has gone into the definitionof text,or, if it has, of
conveyingthe definitionto the reader. Many scholars who use it will
realize thatthe Riversideedition it concords is, by itsanachronizingand
itseliminationof text,a significantshortfallon the whole canon. But few
will know that certain parts of the chosen edition are not concorded,
because the omissions are not admitted or detailed. Most users would
want a concordance of Shakespeare, for example, that retained the
unique phrase "Twelfth Night" and omitted the 27,575 occurences of
"the."The Complete Concordance leans completelytheotherway.One may
 Shak-speare 47

decideeventually thattotheconcorder"text"means"dialogueonly,"for
TheComplete Concordanceomitsstagedirectionsand speechprefixesas
wellas titles.But likemanyclassicaland modernauthorsShakespeare
frequently wrotedialogueintostagedirections.

HeredoetheCeremonies theCircle,
apdmake
belonging,
BallngbrookeorSo thwell Coniuro
readsr,
tc,&c. It Thunders
andLightens
: then
terribly theSpirit
rfeth.
Spirit.Adfam.
theeternall
witch.Afmath,by God,
Whofenameandpowerthoutrembleft
at,

Fromthispassagein2 Henry6 (1.4) youwillfind"adsum"glossedin the

concordance;butdo notlookfor"conjuro"there.Norwillyoufind"&c"
fromthislocation,thoughitis glossedinthisone (fromthatplaywithout
a title).

Whenthtar ClowneCfngr.
Iwas tiveboy,
andalittle
withhey,ho,te windeandtheraine:
A fooalFthing
wasbuta toy,
forthe it
raine raineth
euerydqay
I came
Butwhen tomans ate,
efl
withhe*bo,&c.
Gainfi
KnantuandTheem;s
rmenilbt
theirgate,
fortheraine,&c.

Buttheseexamplesof"&c" are evenlesspossibly dialoguethantheusage

in 2 Henry6. There seemsto be no acceptedtermforthese"dialogue
directions," though"stagedirection"comesclosest.If thatis whatthe
concorderthoughtthem,thensomestagedirections are lessequal than
these.
NotallofShakespeareisdramaticart;thereare,forexample,sonnets
and narrative poems.Notonlyare theirtitlesnotdialogue,itseems,but
neitherare thehundredsofwordsin thelettersdedicatory ofthepoems
or the"Argument" to one ofthem(TheRapeofLucrece), fortheyare not
concorded- withthelossto thevocabulary of sevennewwords,eight
newinflections, 50 newspellings,and one newhomograph.One of the
omittedwordshappensto be "Shakespeare"in itstwooccurencesin the
editionconcorded.Itsomissionsuggeststhatartiscompletely abovelife.
the
Curiously, greatShakespeare concordance of thepast,Bartlett's,
alsoexcludes"TwelfthNight,""Shakespeare," and "conjuro,"and there-
in lies the claimof the CompleteConcordance to its unique distinction.
a of
Recently study Shakespeare'scompleteforeignvocabulary appeared
inFremdsprachen
beiShakespeare;27
ittoo has nothingto do with"Coniurote,
48 Randall McLeod

&c." Modern philology thus affirmsShakespeare's "small Latine," of

whichJonson spoke proudlyin 1623. Nor does any of these threestudies
include "THRENOS" - Shakespeare's "lesse Greeke" - whichoccurs in
the auspicious location afterline 52 of "The Phoenix and Turtle." As the
Greek word is, like titlesand stage directions,not assigned a line number
in the Riverside edition, we may suspect that its editorial enumeration
plays a subtle role in the concorder's criterionof text.
I gather that "Puer" is not part of the foreign vocabularyof Titus
Andronicus,though the edition I am reading (admittedlya very old
fashioned one, propped here on a bundle of xeroxes of manuscript
underliningsby Keats, my rightfoot ratheraskew upon the computer
terminal)has it. In my text it occurs in the speech prefixes,suggesting
thatthe self-consciousLatinityof the dialogue of thisplay pushes out of
the pictureand into the frame: "Boy,"says the modern edition,smooth-
ing the way forcomplete modern comprehension.Neither,it seems, are
Cumalijsand Ambopart of Shakespeare's foreignvocabulary,though I
saw them in one of these books a moment ago.
In fairness I should acknowledge that the lack of Shakespearean
vocabularyis made up by the inclusionof some words thatare not in his
text,likecraggy, Pandion,skips,Spenser,tereuand unlac'd.
Dowland,solfull'st,
I am sorrythat some personal favoriteswere not concorded; I am very
partialto Milton's"Star-ypointing" fromhis versein thesecond folio,and
toJonson's"shake a Stage" and "shake a Lance" fromhis versein the first.
But one cannot have everythingin a complete concordance.

Dramaticpersonae:Very few of Shakespeare's substantivetextshave

dramatispersonaelists.Editorssince Rowe in 1709 have made thempartof
the text,rankingand characterizingthe roles hierarchically,men above
women, gentle above common, all neat and proper, withtheirrelation-
shipsdetailedjust as Shakespeare would wantit.Looming intotheedited
text,thisincrescenceseems a kind of editorialparadigm,a potential,the
dynamicof whichis played out by the subsequent text.Occasionallythe
subsequent textfailsto use quite the proper names, and so editorshave
been quick to correctthe poet, as in thisexample fromAll's Wellin the
unique substantivetext,the folio.
Con.You hauedifcharg'd
thishonefllie,
keepeit
to yourfelfc,
maniclikelihoods
inform'dniceofthis
before,whichhungfotottrizng
intheballance,that
I couldneitherbeelenenormildoubt : praieyou
leauemee,flallthisinyourbofomne,
an-d I thanke
youforyourhoncftcare:I willfpeakc
withyoufur-
theranon. SxitSteward.

Enter
Hello.
Old.cou.Euenfoitvvas
vvithmewhen I wasyong:
vvearenatures,
Ifcuer areours,this
thefe thorni
 Shak-speare 49

DothtoourRofeofyouth righlie
belong
Ourbloudtovs,thistoourbloodisborne,
It isthefhow,
andfealeofnatures truth,
WhereloucsfItongpaffion isimpreft
inyouth,
Byourremembrances ofdaiesforgon,
Suchwereourfaults, orthenwethought none,
them
Hercicisfickc
on'c,I obferuehernow.

There is only one speaker here, her speech punctuated by an exit and
entranceof othercharacters.She is named again, and renamed at that,in
the middle of her speech around these theatricalevents,and a corre-
sponding change of theme.The Countess becomes "Old" preciselywhen
she sees young Hellen and recalls her own youth. CorrectingShake-
speare's mistake,editors eliminatethe "Old." and the second prefix.
The same kind of shiftfor the Countess (if this is to be her name)
occurs in a settingby another compositor- a factthatallows us to rule
out compositorial
causes of thesevaryingnames.28
HeL LookeonhisLetter
Madam,here's
myPafporr.
thtRingponmIy
thoucajofget
Ubrhen which
'vueur
come
jhall o, and
/he a figer,
ofthjbodie,
begorten
that me.
lamfather cal
mechil. in
too,thenhb;band:fcha(rhe)
I write
a Neuer. b.t
Thisisa dreadfull
fentence.
La. Brought youthisLetterGentlemen?
i.G. I Madam, andfortheContm6tt lakeareforrie
forourpaines.
OldLa, Iprethee Ladiehauca bettercheere,
Ifthouengrolreft,
allthegreefes
arethitie,
Thourobft meofamnoity: He wastiy)fonne,
I
But do waflh hisnameoutofmy blood,
Andthouartallmychilde.Towards Floreneeishe?
Fren.G.I Madam.
La. Andtobea fouldier,
Fren.G. Suchishisnoblepurpofe,
andbeleea'c

Here speaking as "La." or Lady (Shakespearehas wanderedagain), she is

reidentifiedas "OldLa." (and again) when addressingthe "Ladie," Hellen.
This same character speaks under the name "Mother"(and again) else-
wherein the play,at a timewhen she relinquishesher son, as he becomes
a ward of the King. Shakespeare's textsabound in thesepolynomials,but
as the editorshave hidden all trace of them,the Newtonof theircalcula-
tion has yetto appear. (For Keats, however,the apple would have fallen;
in his folio Lear speeches are assigned to the same role under the titles
Edmundand Bastard.)
By so improvingShakespeare, editorshave eliminatedfromthe text
itsclear and evocativeevidence of layeringand joints. Not onlythat,they
have added their own junctions - in the formal divisionsof Act and
Scene, conventionswhichShakespeare showsno evidence of havingreg-
ularly used. They have thus obliteratedthe text's inherentcapacity to
50 Randall McLeod

indicatesome of itsown episodic and thematicdivisionsand preoccupa-

tions. The result is obliterature.For editors to foist single names on
charactersto whom Shakespeare responded, while creatingthem,with
manynames, is to impose retrospectiveunderstandingupon text,to seek
artofficialcreationratherthan real creating.It is a practicethatprops up
the criticalnotion of consistentcharacterization,when it is uncalled for,
indeed contradicted,by the text.
Over half a century ago Allison Gaw observed that the frequent
occurrenceof actors'names in earlyShakespeare textsindicatedtheatri-
cal functionsof the underlyingmanuscripts.29 Shakespeare readers now
know littleof this(although theyare, paradoxically,warned thatShake-
speare wrote for the stage, not for the study), because editors have
removed "Wil Kempe" froma stage directionin Romeoand substituted
"Peter,"the role name. Tawyer withhis trumpetis gone fromA Midsum-
merNight'sDream,and Sinklo has disappeared fromnumerousplays.Gaw
shows that the last named actor was a bean pole, and that some of
Shakespeare's parts,like thatof theApothecaryin Romeoor that,literally,
of Sinklo in the quarto of 2 Henry4 ("Beadle" or "Officer"in F), were
likelywrittenwith a thin man in mind. By eliminatinghintsof the re-
sources of Shakespeare's company whichinfluencedhim as he scripted,
or which were his company's way of responding to his scripts,editors
have made sure thatShakespeare is not of his age, but forall time.And
yet there are contemporaryplays like Antonioand Mellida, The Road to
Parnassus,Bartholomew Fair and TheMalcontentin which the actor's own
personality and sometimes his name were as much part of the stage
business and audience response as was his fictiverole.L"3 How could it
have been otherwisewithrepertorytheatre,unmasked actorand regular
clientele?How otherwisein a dramatictraditionobsessed by the interre-
lationship of theatre and life, of Globe and globe? The editors have
condemned such plays, in which the actors' names cannot sensiblybe
eliminated,to be not forall time,but of theirage. This is one reason why
for us Shakespeare towersabove his contemporaries.

SpeechPrefixity: The mention of type names brings me to a final

comment on the widespread misunderstandingof Shakespeare occa-
sioned byeditorialbehavior. When one bypassesthe editorsto read Loues
LaboursLostin Q or in F, one discoversthatcertainrolesare denominated
by both typenames and personal names, the principlesof theirdistribu-
tion not being immediatelyclear:
Pedant is also Holofernes
Braggart Don Adrianode Armado
Curate Nathaniel
Clown(Foole) Costard
Page (Boy) Moth

Most names occur in bothaudible and inaudible textin Q, but the editors
 Shak-speare 51

consistently opt forthe right-handcolumn to use in theirspeech prefixes

(though some of them allow these names to be supplemented in stage
directionsby names in the left-handcolumn,if theyare alreadythere in
the copytext).
Some kindof layeringof textcan be detectedin thedistributionof the
various names of the second-named role. His speeches are introduced
withan abbreviationofArmadoin 1.2 and of Braggartin 5.1 and 5.2; both
names occur in 3.1, the Braggart names appearing in a block at the
beginning of the scene, rather than the end, and the Armado names
occuring at the end, rather than the beginning. (In F almost all the
Armado names are replaced withBraggart.)The firsteditor,Rowe, used
a later folio,in which,as noted, the Braggartname was predominant-
but he changed these wholesale to Armado. He inventedthe firstlistof
dramatis personae,where we find "Don Adriano de Armado, a fantastical
Spaniard," - and ExitBraggartin toto.Thus Rowe and his followerssteer
readers away from Scylla (our dangerous propensity to think Don
Adriano is a Polish-Lithuanianname), onlyto drownus in Charybdis(our
dangerous propensityto treatthe role as unified under a personal and
familyname). Yet the theatricaltype name, Braggart, is essential for
readers to know,as when we are told late in the play thatArmado's child
"brags" inJaquenetta's(The Wench's) (the Maid's) belly,or in thiscrucial
recognition(the only time "Braggart"appears in the dialogue), uttered
by Berowne when he catches sightof all the characterslistedabove, and
proclaims(Q; 5.2.542):
the
Bero. The Pedant,theBragart,theHedge-Priest,
Foole,and theBoy,

To read thisline in Rowe's traditionis to missthe factthatBerowne seems

here to be naming them not as persons in the fiction,but as theatrical
types,and the name he uses, for this characterat least, is the same as
Shakespeare uses outside the dialogue. Readersof the early textsof the
play can see Shakespeare's leftand hear his righthand, each keeping to
its own diction,and then experience them come togetherin Berowne's
strategicline. Perhaps theysee therebysomethingthathearkensback to
the nature of the theatricalexperience of the play in Shakespeare's time,
somethingthatcan be reconstructedonlyout of such slighttextualclues
(since, as is not the case in the French theatre,there is no continuous
conservativetraditionof acting Shakespeare).
If one reads the standard editorialintroductions,one maylearn that
Armado descends fromthe Latin milesgloriosusof Plautine comedy; one
mighteven be told that the Latin phrase means "braggartsoldier." But
thisis no more informativethan explaining thatHamlet is a descendent
of Adam, when we realize thatBerowne's line,just quoted, names typical
roles of the commediadell' arte: and that the direct influenceon Shake-
speare is not the Plautinemilesbut the commedia's Braggart.Shakespeare's
52 Randall McLeod

play,then,is somethingof a commedy.Concerned withdrama as mime-

sis,editorshave forgottenthatit is constructionas well.The terminology
thatthe editorsremove fromviewagain and again is thespecificworking
diction of a contemporarydramaturgictradition.What theysubstitute
for it is the kind of tidylearning that would have incapacitatedShake-
speare if he had known it.

Godspeare

Not all scholarsshare the attitudesof Shakespeare editorstowardthe

question of textualtransmission.Talking to a Hebrew scholar recently,I
was struckwhen he recalled a textby rememberingthatit was half way
down a righthand page. When I expressed amazement at his spatial
sense of text(Why not cite chapter and verse?),he replied that Hebrew
scripture,both in its essence and for purposes of transmission,is like a
concretepoem. Form and contenthave not yetfallenapart. For example,
although the Hebrew alephbeth has no upper and lower case letters,in
several places in scripturelettersare writtenout of size; and thisfeature,
deemed mystically allegorical,"1is,along withline endings,page endings,
and even textof doubtfulmeaning,repeated - "religiously"is the word,
I think- witheverycopying,because meaning permeatesall aspects of
text. The editorial function,as a Shakespeare editor might see it, is
limitedto commentary.Text and reading are distinct.In thiswaythe text
resistsbeing made to conformto its interpretation.
So be it.
Awe men.

NOTES

1. I wishto thankmycolleagues V.A. DeLuca, JoAnna Dutka, MargaretAnn Fitzpatrick

and Phil Oxley fortheirveryhelpfulcriticismof an earlydraftof the essay.Stephen Booth,
Northrop Frye and Richard Van Fossen will understand, and Joe Barber would have
understood,whyI thank them again. I am also gratefulforsupport to the Social Sciences
and Research Council of Canada.
My understanding of Keats' biography,and particularlyof his "Shakespearolatry,"
comes fromWalterJacksonBate,JohnKeats,Cambridge,Mass., 1963, and John Middleton
Murry,Keatsand Shakespeare: A StudyofKeats'PoeticLifefrom1816 to 1820, London, 1925.
For lettersbyand to Keats the followingare invaluable: Hyder Edward Rollins,TheLettersof
JohnKeats,1814-1820, 2 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1958, and his TheKeatsCircle,Lettersand
Papers1816-1878, 2 vols. (includingthe supplementof 1955), Cambridge,Mass., 1965. For
the poetry,Jack Stillinger'ssuperb variorumedition, ThePoemsofJohnKeats,Cambridge,
Mass., 1978. For some of Keats' underlining of Shakespeare, Caroline F. E. Spurgeon,
Keats'sShakespeare:A DescriptiveStudyBased on New Material,Oxford, 1928; and also Keats'
folio at Keats House, Hampstead, and Keats' Whittinghamedition at the Houghton Li-
brary,Harvard.
 Shak-speare 53

2. QuoteslikethisfromTheLetters (op.cit.)willbe identified

simplybythenumberand
dateassignedto thembyRollins,in thiscase No. 21 (15 April1817).I havetriedto be as
conservative as possibleof Rollins'un-normalizations, though,as hisnotessay,notall his
copy-texts are authors'manuscripts. Rollins'textis printedin roman,but I havechosen
italicwhenprinting itin letterformat(as opposedto thebriefquotationhere.)If I could
havephotoquotedtheletters, I wouldhavedone so.
3. Rollins22 (17 April1817).
4. Murry,op.cit.,pp. 37-38.
5. Rollins110 (8 October1818).
6. Rollins,22 (17 April1817).
7. Rollins,26 (10, 11 May 1817).
8. Rollins,55 (23 January1818).
9. The following collationofthefourvariantversions(twobeingholographs byKeats,
the othertwobeingcopies by Woodhouseand Jeffrey), has been photo-quoted from
Stillinger'sedition,whichmodernizesspellingand punctuation and quotesminor
freely,
variantsselectively.(Note,forexample,theomissionor neglectof thetitlein theJeffrey
transcript,of whichmorebelow.)

On SittingDown toRead "KingLear." Text (includingheading) fromthe extant holograph

faircopy(FC). Variantsand otherreadingsfromKeats'sdraft(D), Woodhouse'slV tran-
script,and Jeffrey's
transcriptof Keats'snowlostletterto Georgeand Tom Keats,23, 24
January1818 (JJ). HeadingOn] Sonnet.On W2 2 queen of] Queen of alteredto
Queen! ifJJ 4 thine]madeoutofthyD 4 pages](Books) PagesD; volumeJJ 6
damnation] Hell-tormentMW,JJ 7 humbly]interlined
above(must I) D; thewordomitted
in
JJ 8/9(Chief!whata gloomthineold oak foresthath!)(thinemadeoutofthy)D 9
ChiefPoet](0) ChiefPoetinterlined
above(Chieftain)D 10 our] thisD. W-;our inter-
linedabove(this) FC 11 through . . . am] I am throughthe old oak forestJJ 13 in]
withJJ 14 at] to D, W2; at written
over (to) FC

10. Rollins56 (23, 24 January1818).

11. Rollins166 (9 June1819).Rollinsreportsthatthemanuscript is somewhat unclear
and "clouded"actuallyreads"couded."
12.The problemofself-assessment beforeShakespeareand confrontation withhimcan
be seenin moredetailbyconsidering draftD, collatedin footnote9 byStillinger.In the
deletedlinebetweenlines8 and 9 ("Chief!whata gloomthineoldoakforest hath!")theoak
forest("gloomy in D only)is specifically
theChiefs, tociteanotherwordin
or theChieftan's,
thisdraft- wordsofunparticularized authority,unlike"ChiefPoet."In thefolioversion,
however, thegloomlifts, and theforestis sharedwiththeCloudsofAlbion(ifindeedthe
forest istobe associatedherewitheitherofthem,as itis"the"not"their" oakforest).Thusa
specificallyShakespearean darknessseemslightened in thelaterdraftsbyprojecting some
of itup ontoa transcendent whichKeatsand Shakespearecan share(o
nationalidentity,
happythought)equally,as in "oureternaltheme."
I gatherthatthephrasingoftheearlystagesofD canbe reconstructed tolooklikethis:
... for once again, the fiercedispute 5
humbly
MustI burnthrough,
once more mn*s-*4-
assay 7
The bitter-sweet... 8
The originallyrepeated"mustI" suggests compulsion;thedeletionoftheseconduse does
nottotallyeliminate
eitherthesuggestion or thedictionofcompulsion at theendofline7,
fortheclausebeginning therelacksa subjectandverb,and theonlyonesavailabletofillin
theelipsisare"mustI." Nevertheless,
thereplacement of"mustI" with"humbly" suggests a
movement fromtheseemingly outwardcompulsionto theinnervirtueof humility, with
regardto whichit is somewhatparadoxical,and preparesus wellforthe immediate
oxymoron, "bitter-sweet".
54 RandallMcLeod

The tensionbetween flyingtoor at his desire seems to have been a question onlyin the
lateststage of composition.
13. Quoted fromRollins,TheLetters ofJohnKeats,vol. 1, p. 323, n. 8 (quoted in turnfrom
his Keats Circle,vol. 2, p. 271).
14. Rollins,Keats Circle,vol. 2, supplement (MoreLettersand Poems.. .), p. 24.
15. All the illustrationsof Keats' markingsin his folio are reproduced (not to size) from
the originalbypermissionof the London Borough of Camden fromthe collectionat Keats
House, Hampstead, to whose Director,Mr. F. D. Cole, and AssistantCurator, Mrs. C. M.
Gee, I wish to express my sincerestthanks. I am gratefulalso to Steve Jaunzems for
photoprocessingand to Felix Fonteynfor the negatives.
16. A parallel may support mycontention.Joyce'sautobiographicalA PortraitoftheArtist
as a YoungMan comes to a close in diary form.Here the hero chronicleshis escape from
Ireland over the sea. The book ends like this:
27 April:Old father,old artificer,stand me now and
ever in good stead.
Dublin 1904
Trieste 1914
The question is whether the terminal referencesto Dublin and Trieste are part of' the
Portraitor part of its frame. The answer is thatthe question is biased against "authorbio-
graphy."A similarproblemarises in the paintingsof Seurat (his Un Dimanched'Etea l'lledela
Grandejatte,forexample), in whichhe actuallypaintsthe framearound the subject.It is not
a trompe l'oeilborder, but a reversalof adjacent interiorcolorationin the same pointilistic
styleas the framed. The frame thus refusesto delimitthe artefactby its inner edge.
17. Rollins 159 (14... February ... 1819 - actually composed in stages until 3 May
1819).
18. The essay appeared in 1936, and is available withothers by Benjamin in Hannah
Arendt,ed., Illuminations, New York, [1968].
19. I say "approximately"because I am thinkingof settingby formes. In quarto one
mightset pages 2, 3, 6 and 7, and then 1, 4, 5, 8.
20. Shakespeare's manuscriptsseem all to be lost.
21. The currentwave of new thoughton the multiplesubstantivetextsof Lear is led by
Michael J. Warren, "Quarto and Folio King Lear and the Interpretationof Albany and
Edgar," in David Bevingtonand Jay L. Halio, eds., Shakespeare: PatternofExcellingNature,
Newark, Del., 1978. More recentlySteven Urkowitz,Shakespeare's Revisionof King Lear,
Princeton, 1980 explores the theatricaldifferentiationof Q and F. Forthcomingfrom
Oxford is Gary Taylor and Michael J. Warren,eds., TheDivisionoftheKingdom,offeringa
range of essays on the two textsand the editing tradition.
22. Spurgeon, op. cit.;pp. 48-49. The folio 1 Henry4 also shows signsof Keats' collation,
presumablywithhis Wittingham.
23. See also E. A. J. Honigmann, The Stability Text,London and Lincoln,
ofShakespeare's
Neb., 1965 for studyof Keats' attentionto minutedetail in revision.
24. Hazlitt,WhittinghamShakespeare and Spenser volumesare at Harvard; Miltonand
the folio Shakespeare at Keats House.
25. For related typographicalargumentsee my"Spellbound: Typographyand the Con-
cept of Old-Spelling Editions,"Ren&R, n.s., Vol. 3 # 1, 1979, pp. 50-65. Two other pieces
thatexploit typographicaldetail are my"A Technique of Headline Analysis,withApplica-
tion to ShakespearesSonnets,1609," SB, Vol. 32, 1979, pp. 197-210, and "Unemending
Shakespeare's Sonnet 111," SEL. Vol. 21, 1981, pp. 75-96.
26. Marvin Spevack, comp., The Complete Concordance..., 9 volumes to date,
Systematic
Hildesheim, 1968 -; TheHarvardConcordance, Cambridge,Mass., 1973. The Riversideed.,
on which these concordances are based, is edited by Gwynne Blakemore Evans; of the
student editions it is, admirably,the most oriented to textual scholarship,and the most
encouraging of textual scepticism.
 Shak-speare 55

27. A. Staufer,Fremdsprachen bei Shakespeare:

Das Vokabularund seineDramatischen Funk-
tionen,Frankfurt,1974.
28. The F pages are V3r and Xlr. Charlton Hinman, ThePrintingand Proof-Reading ofthe
FirstFolioofShakespeare,
2 vols.,Oxford, 1963, vol. 2, p. 515, assignsthese to compositorsA
and B respectively.
29. AllisonGaw, "JohnSinckloas One of Shakespeare's Actors,"Anglia,vol. 49, 1925, pp.
289-303.
30. "Paul Newman is Hud!"
31. Here isJohnSmith'sword on itfromThePrinter's Grammar, London, 1755, pp. 293-4.
The Hebrew has no Capitals; and thereforelettersof the same shape, but of a
large Body, are used at the beginningof Chapters,and other partsof Hebrew work.
But we must not pronounce it a fault,if we happen to meet in some Bibles with
words thatbegin witha letterof a much larger Body than the mean Text; nor need
we be astonish'dto see words withlettersin themof a much less Body than the mean
Text; or wonder to see finallettersused in the middle of words; forsuch Notes shew
thattheycontain some particularand mysticalmeaning. Thus in 2 Chron. I. 1. the
wordAdambegins witha letterof a largersize than the rest,therebyto intimate,that
Adam is the fatherof all Mankind. Again, in Genes. I. 1., the greatBeth in the word
Bereschith stands fora Monitorof the greatand incomprehensibleworkof Creation.
Contraryto the first,in Prov. XXVIII. 17. the Daleth in the wordAdamis consider-
ably less than the Letterof the main text,to signifythatwhoeveroppresses an other
openlyor clandestinely,tho' of a mean condition;or who sheds innocentblood, is not
worthyto be called Man.
Sometimes the open or common Mem stands in the room of a finalone; as in
Nehem. II. 13. where the word hemhas an open Mem at the end, in allusion to the
tornand open wallsofJerusalem,of whichthereis mentionmade; and, in Es. VII. 14.
where the Prophet speaks of the Conception of the Virgin Mary,the Mem in the
wordhaalma,or Virgin,is a close or finalletter,to intimatethevirginityof themother
of our Saviour. Such are the peculiaritiesof some JewishRabbi's in Bibles of their
publication; of which we have instanced the above, to caution Compositors not to
take them for faults,if such mysticalwritingsshould come under theirhands.

? Randall McLeod, U. of Toronto, July 1981.