Item 12 - List of general queries, by Alice Walker

1 single sheet

Transcript

General queries

1. Re collation notes on scene division. Is the statement Pope+ a sufficiently accurate indication of the relation of Pope’s scene division to that of modern editors? In view of the use of brackets in other contexts would (Pope)+ better suggest the discrepancy between Pope’s numbering and the present? It would remind the reader that Pope’s numbering isn’t generally followed—a point which I had forgotten until the Camb. collation notes reminded me; if I had seen in your notes a bracket I think I would have recalled this fact.

2. Am I right in thinking that (Cap.)+ following a reading indicates that the form in which the reading is given is substantially, though not literally, Capell’s and that all later editors follow his reading, while Cap.(+) {2} means that the reading just given is literally Capell’s & that subsequent editors follow it with slight modifications; and that, further, (Cap.+)—as at I. iv. 69 {1}—is used deliberately and = (Cap.)(+)?

3. In some places readings which should logically be grouped together have got separated by other readings which tend to blur the precise nature of the point at issue. Would the collation notes to I. i. 50 {3} and I. iv. 33 {4} be clearer if arranged as on the accompanying slips? In the latter note I have used brackets for readings which are nothing more than modernisations of form or spelling (on the lines of your note to I. iii. 62), but in the former I havn’t put Theobald’s ‘nourice’ in brackets as, though from the same stem, nourish & nourice seem to have existed independently. [Added in the margin: ‘Before bothering about this see Queries to Collation notes re I. iii. 62 (p. 7)’ {5}]

[I have left a gap between Theo. ii and Johnson in the note to I. iv. 33. Your MS. has a dash and I don’t know whether to substitute a comma.] {6}

I have put these notes on separate slips so that if you like the arrangement better than that I’ve copied you can paste them over.

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Typed, except the marginal note and some special signs and underlinings. This is No. 6 on the list MCKW A4/11. For McKerrow’s replies to queries 1 and 2 see MCKW A4/13.

{1} The play in question is 1 Henry VI. The reference may in fact be to line 68, where F. has ‘For ought I see, this Citie must be famisht,’ and Capell amended to ‘famish’d’.

{2} According to the Prolegomena (pp. 80-5), ‘(Cap.)(+)’ would indicate that a reading was substantially Capell’s and that all later editors follow it with slight modifications. McKerrow appears to have decided against collation notes of the form ‘(Cap.+)’; cf. MCKW A4/13.

{3} F. ‘Our Ile be made a Nourish of salt Teares,’.

{4} F. ‘Rather then I would be so pil’d esteem’d:’.

{5} It is unclear whether the line in the Globe edition with this reference is the line intended (F. ‘Here’s Gloster, a Foe to Citizens,’).

{6} The square brackets are original.
 

Sent with A4/10.