Reading Readings: Essays on Shakespeare Editing in the Eighteenth-Century

As its title suggests, Reading Readings analyzes the act and art of reading Shakespeare's texts during the eighteenth century. The scope of the work is broad, synthesizing a good deal of earlier research on editing practices in the eighteenth century, which lays the foundation for a "re-reading" that compares eighteenth-century and contemporary reading practices. This method is thoroughly successful, and the authors enter into a thoughtful dialogue that will captivate anyone with interests in the eighteenth century, Shakespeare, or the study of scholarly reading and editing.

Of these essays, the most original and challenging is Random Cloud's meta-editing performance "Shakspear Babel." Shakespeare's plays were of course performed, with the audience's response to the actor's personality, emotions, etc., as part of the text. Editing typically eliminates a large portion of this performative interaction. Cloud's essay is brilliant in that it reinstates it. Unfortunately, readers are not adequately prepared for this approach in the introduction. While Gondris informs us that Cloud's essay is revolutionary, she does not sufficiently delineate this aspect. Without such foregrounding Cloud's approach will cause confusion and frustration for most readers. Cloud's essay is provocative but disillusioning to all but the most seasoned reader. For example, Random Cloud intentionally interjects misspellings (e.g., "commo nsense" p. 47) typeset editing marks off in the margins, seemingly non sequitur comments to the reader [e.g., "But all these letters have me hungry. How about you?" p. 6; "(Besides, I've got this page limitation.)" p. 32; and "GATHER ALL THE PEOPLE & LETS EAT!" p. 61], and other visually unorthodox practices such as paragraphs cut off in mid sentence, etc., --effects maddening enough for the reader to conclude that Cloud's essay is simply a portrait of the faulty logic and actual "insanity" of poor editing. However, as a performer and a jokester (as was Shakespeare), there is a method to his madness-the most provocative of which is the performance of intentional error. Contemporary readers, including Random Cloud himself, frequently deride eighteenth-century editors for their tendency to label any aspect of Shakespeare's text they found confusing as an error. Cloud makes the reader both audience and participant to this eighteenth-century practice by performing "error." Cloud also performs the intrusion of an authorial personality, challenging the stability of authorial or editorial identity and returning the reader to a position of not knowing if what she knows has much or any bearing on reality, as those she depends on to provide accurate information are unreliable.

The essay makes other insightful, albeit provoking, points, but as Cloud's editorial persona would remind me, I have this page limitation and must move on to the other more traditional scholarly articles. Ann Thompson's "'Making Him Speak True English': Grammatical Emendation in Some Eighteenth-Century Editions of Shakespeare, with Particular Reference to Cymbeline," demonstrates how slight changes in punctuation can dramatically change the effect of the words on the reader, an observation that underscoress the connection between eighteenth-century and contemporary editing practices. She begins her article by comparing four different contemporary editorial emendations of a section of Cymbeline with the First Folio's version:

You do not meet a man but Frownes.
Our bloods no more obey the Heauens
Then our Courtiers:
Still seeme as do's the Kings. (First Folio)

You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still seem as does the king's. (Arden: J. M. Nosworthy, ed. 1955)
You do not meet a man but frowns.
Our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still seem as does the king. (Cambridge: J. C. Maxwell, ed. 1960)

You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers'
Still seem as does the King's. (Riverside: G. Blakemore Evans, ed. 1974)

You do not meet a man but frowns. Our bloods
No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
Still seem as does the king.
(Oxford Complete Works: Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, eds. 1985)
(Thompson 72-3)

These recent emendations often seem the result of trying to "regularize" Shakespeare's meter, etc., or as Thompson describes it, these editors are trying to make Shakespeare "speak true English"--even when this writes against Shakespeare's intentions. Thompson points out that while the faults of contemporary editors might be different from those of their eighteenth-century counterparts, they are not necessarily substantially fewer. "Certainly [eighteenth-century editors] have stronger notions of what is correct than we have today, but they do not apply arbitrary rules across the board. Much of their zeal for correction goes into correcting each other rather than correcting Shakespeare's who is often allowed to break the rules" (83). Linda McJannet's '"The Scene Changes'? Stage Directions in Eighteenth-Century Acting Editions of Shakespeare," concludes this section with a thoughtful case study of how an inaccurate intrusion of editorial opinion in something as seemingly innocuous as a stage direction can have significant ramifications on the audience's "reading" of a play.

The following two sections contain articles by Seary, Clary, Roberts, Osborne, Aasand, Maurer, Dash, and Fizer that provide additional case studies and analysis of eighteenth-century editorial practice in terms of contemporary "readings." A more positive critique of eighteenth-century editing practice is Joanna Gondris's accolade for the variorum in, "'All This Farrago': The Eighteenth-Century Shakespeare Variorum Page as a Critical Structure ." Nevertheless, Gondris attributes the scholarly contributions of the variorum to incidental rather than intentional goals. While often attempting to create a definitive single reading, in practice, variorum editors of the eighteenth century created a place for multiple and ambiguous readings. This is insightful, although in the context of Cloud's essay it also creates an unintentional irony, suggesting that both eighteenth-century editors and their contemporary counterparts are successful only by accident. Paul Nelsen's "Chedworth and the Territoriality of the Reader" is another provocative, if not entirely flattering, view of eighteenth-century criticism that reflects on contemporary "readers" as well. He portrays Chedworth as the "typical" eighteenth-century "reader"--one of a plodding and generally imitative mind, who occasionally has original thoughts but generally supports his ideas by deferring to more authoritative sources. As do many of the other works in the collection, his essay demonstrates and makes concrete one of the points that Cloud's essay performs. Nelson introduces an editing error that if nurtured could help Cloud create another tower of Babel. Nelson attributes the line, "If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard; / Cry-sorrow, wag and hem"(5.1.15-16) to "Leontes" of Much Ado about Nothing (154). However, this attribution would seem unlikely as "Leontes" is the King of Sicilia in The Winter's Tale, and it is "Leonato" who appears in Much Ado about Nothing.

In the final section, Bernice W. Kliman's, "Samuel Johnson and Tonsons' 1745 Shakespeare: Warburton, Anonymity, and the Shakespeare Wars," and Catherine M. S. Alexander's, "Province of Pirates: The Editing and Publication of Shakespeare's Poems in the Eighteenth Century," discuss how a reader's "personality" influences his editing. The other articles of this last section, Eric Rasmussen's "Anonymity and the Erasure of Shakespeare's First Eighteenth-Century Editor" and Alan R. Young's "Visual Images of Hamlet, 1790-1800," differ from the other essays in that they do not perform or explore reading or editing so much as they lay out interesting and clear plans for further research.

My only real complaint in respect to this collection is the absence of a bibliography of current related research that notes the contributions of such scholars as E. A. Honigmann, Grace Ioppolo, John Kerrigan, Jerome J. McGann, Steven Urkowitz, Michael J. Warren, Stanley Wells, and Gary Taylor to the ideas and methodology of Reading Readings. I hesitate to mention this because overall it detracts very little from an outstanding contribution to the field. I mention this absence, however, because it may cause some readers to ascribe to the work deeper flaws that would prevent them from taking this book as seriously as it deserves to be taken. Of course, the placement of the extremely perplexing "Shakspear Babel" as the first chapter, might also discourage readers from continuing. In such circumstances, I can only recommend perseverance; however, if after repeated attempts at deciphering the "Babel" they are still left stranded in the tower, I would recommend swiftly moving to any of the other excellent articles.