‘As from’ 21 Beaumont Street, Oxford.—Discusses the first part of his review of Greg's Editorial Problem in Shakespeare.
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Transcript
As from 21 Beaumont Str., Oxford,
25/1/44
Dear Dr. Greg,
I am glad to see from your letter of 13.1., that you are not too much displeased by part I of my review {1}, and I hope the proofs of part II (sent to you, unfortunately and against my explicit instructions, in an uncorrected state [Footnote: ‘You need not me to emend Ashby into Aspley.']) will explain some of the points which seemed doubtful to you at first sight. Certainly you will have realized that I do not treat substantive variants (i.e. variants of substantive witnesses) as all equally available if intrinsically acceptable. ‘Probability of error’ (which includes most of what you call ‘bibliography’) I have always treated as an important criterion, though as one of secondary importance only. You will find more about it in my ‘Textkritik’ (1927), which is to a considerable degree independent of the language of the texts concerned there.
You rightly object to the words ‘a variant in a conflated text being proved to be substantive’. But I do not remember having used it†. What I wanted to point out is this: if in a text b which is mainly derivative (as compared with a), one reading is proved to be substantive (i.e. not derived from a), then every variant of b from a becomes potentially substantive, and must be examined just as if b were substantive in its own right, so that the distinction between sporadic and pervasive conflation becomes useless. That the agreement of a purely substantive witness with a conflated one has quite a different character from the agreement of two purely substantive witnesses I never denied (cf. my notes on Rich. III in R.E.S. 1942). What I criticised is only the classification of witnesses according to their higher or lesser degree of conflation or authority. Not even the fact that F has reprinted or rejected a text does, in my eyes, constitute a class-character.
I confess to having no idea what kind of witness the common source of Q1 and Q4 of R. and J. was if there was any common source. But I do think the subject requires a new treatment, since Tycho Mommsen’s parallel, the ‘Perkins Folio’, has gone, and the later editors have as far as I see completely failed to see the problem.
I am writing this from London where I had to stay for some days; so please excuse the bad ink and the worse style. There will be I am afraid more discussion about part II of my review, and I am at your disposal for any further explanation you shoud† want from me. I shall be especially grateful for your criticism of the conjecture in my Postscript.
With my best thanks for your kind letter
I remain sincerely yours
P. Maas.
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Written in purple ink.
{1} The first part of Maas’s review of The Editorial Problem in Shakespeare, printed in the October 1943 issue of the Review of English Studies. The second part appeared the following January. Cf. GREG 2/2, pp. 92–4.
† Sic.
