Frederick Fleay is one of the great names of Shakespeare scholarship. But he had peers. The 19th (and early 20th)
century was a golden age of Shakespeare scholarship. He shared the heights with the likes of John
Halliwell, Frederick Furnival, Charlotte Stokes, and Sidney Lee. In the wider Elizabethan and early Stuart scholarship
fields there is the towering Rev. A. B. Grosart, the carefully precise A. H. Bullen
and W. W. Greg, many more.
Fleay was the data guru of the bunch, a hundred and fifty years
before his time. As the result of his
work and influence the amateur scholar has an amount of data available without
having him- or herself to undergo the weeks and months of tedious counting and
creation of tables.
What follows is the metrical table he presented to the New
Shakespeare Society in an 1874 paper.[1] The paper appears in the annual publications
of Transactions for that year. It is one
of the great works of Shakespeare scholarship.
This is not to say that his data led to perfect reasoning. Fleay’s own interpretations amount to highly educated
guesses as to what his data revealed.
The guesses had considerably a better chance of being correct, overall, but
they remained guesses.
As for myself, I would argue with quite a lot of them. Nevertheless, the data remains for what
support it can give my alternative explanations. For whatever answer will prove to be correct,
in any related question, will have to agree with the data.
It is this that Fleay’s tables provide us. They provide a precise, unassailable stock of
evidence from which to begin a wide range of debates — against which to test
one’s own theories.
The replies of the other members of the Society that are printed
together with Fleay’s paper make an important point. Some members are careful to limit the damage
the data might do to their favorite theories.
Others more disinterestedly probe the tables and the idea of data itself
for weaknesses and limitations.
Alexander J. Ellis, of President of the Philological Society, is
reported to have “dwelt upon”
the necessity of consulting the Quartos as
well as the Folios, and not basing statistical inquiries upon any one critical
edition—or, at least, separating the points relating to doubtful lines. He
considered that we owed a great deal, indeed, to Mr Fleay; but more for
initiating than for completing the work.
This is, of course, is something that all of us who avail ourselves
of Fleay data cannot help but feel. We
need more. We will always need
more. Fleay added to his original paper
in his books. Others were impressed with
the method it all suggested and provided more data from their own tedious efforts
at counting and categorizing. They tend
to write the best scholarly introductions — works that one keeps on a special
shelf. But still, what is clearest from
the work of Frederick Fleay is how much the field suffers for the lack of readily
available data.
[1]
The New Shakespeare Society’s Transactions, 1874.
- Shakespeare on Gravity. August 26, 2018. “So carelessly does Shakespeare throw out such an extraordinary divination. His achievement in thus, as it were, rivalling Newton may seem in a certain sense even more extraordinary than Goethe's botanical and osteological discoveries;…”
- Let the sky rain potatoes! December 16, 2017. "In fact, the sweet potato had only just begun to be a delicacy within the reach of splurging poets and playwrights and members of the middle classes at the time that The Merry Wives of Windsor (the play from which Falstaff is quoted) was written. The old soldier liked to keep abreast of the new fads."
- Sir Anthony Bacon: a Life in the Shadows. January 25, 2016. "Somehow Sir Anthony had the habit of ingratiating himself in circles of the highest historical interest and most questionable mores."
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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