Table Of Content70-23,047
HART, John Augustine, 1917-
ALEXANDER POPE’S EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE:
A CRITICAL STUDY. .
Yale University, Ph.D., 1943
Language and Literature, general
University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
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YALE UNIVERSITY
1970
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED
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AT.TTCAMDKR POPE’S EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE
A CRITICAL STUDY
BY
JOHN AUGUSTINE HART
£ D issertation
Presented to the Faculty of
The Graduate School of Yale University
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
1943
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This dissertation has as its primary objective the re-examination
of Pope's edition of Shakespeare in the light of his own. theory of
editing. This theory makes the m aterials of an author completely sub
ject to the editor's taste, and permits him (even requires him) to
present only what is worth presenting in his author's work. This con
ception w ill be established with the assistance of parallel theories
held by the pre-scientific world about philosophy, history, and
literatu re, suggesting that Pope's independent handling of his materials
is not a phenomenon peculiar to himself, but rather is representative
of a way of thought to tally different from that of the modern world.
It w ill then be made clear that Pope’s scholarship in this edition was
not careless or unsystematic as previous critics have attested; his
scholarly efforts are merely made subsidiary to his editorial precepts.
Some of the peculiarities which resulted from the freedom which he took -
the choice of "beauties", the condemnation of "faults", the changes
and omissions in the text — w ill next be discussed, as well as the
influence of these procedures upon his contemporaries. Finally, since
it w ill be evident that Pope was attempting to present an edition of
Shakespeare's "best" work,judged by the standards of his own age, an
effort w ill be made to reconstruct some of the critical principles by
which he was guided in his choices; these principles w ill be found, on
the one hand, to reinforce some present-day ideas about Pope's critical
other, to introduce some ideas not usually
f
asscjflqated with him.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION...........................................................j................... i
CHAPTER
I. POPE’S CONCEPTION OF THE DUTIES OF AN EDITOR ... 1
II. POPE AS SCHOLAR.......................................................................... 25
III. POPE AS CREATIVE EDITOR .......................................................... 49
IV. POPE AS CRITIC .................................................................. 87
APPENDIX A .......................................... 129
APPENDIX B ....................................................................... 143
APPENDIX C ..................................................... 181
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................ 185
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INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION
The preparation of a new edition of Shakespeare’s works was
one of Alexander Pope’s chief occupations during the years 1720-1725.1
The Iliad had been completely translated and published by 1720, and it
may be assumed that shortly thereafter he became interested in Shake
speare and began work upon the text. He himself summarizes the
activ ities of these years in a note to The Duneiad (1736 ed.), Book III,
line 328i
He began the Iliad in 1713 and fin ish ’d it in 1719. The Edition
of Shakespear, (which he undertook merely because he thought nobody
else would) took up near two years more, in the drudgery of com
paring Impressions, rectifying the Scenery, etc. and the translation
of half the Odyssey employ’d him from that time to 1725.
There is no particular reason for doubting this statement. In a le tte r
from Atterbury to Pope in October, 1721, reference is made to Pope’s
o
’’dabbling" with the text of Shakespeare, and Pope wriieB to Caryll
about the same time:
Though I can give you no good account of myself as to anything
of my own, yet I am very busy in doing justice to a far greater
poet, of whose works I am giving a new edition.3
1 For a more detailed account of these ideas, see George Sherburn,
The Early Career of Alexander Pope, London, 1934, pp. 232-40.
g
Pope, Works (Elwin-Courthope ed.), London, 1871, vol. IX, pp. 31-32.
3 Ibid. . vol. YI, p. 280.
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iii
The public also received notice of this work in 1721, when Pope
advertised in the Evening World for October:
Whereas a new Edition of Shakespear has been for some Time
preparing for the Press; any Person therefore who is possessed
of any old Editions of single Plays of His, and w ill communicate
the same to J. Tonson in the Strand, such Assistance w ill be
received as a particular Obligation, or otherwise acknowledged
in any Manner they shall think proper.
From this evidence it is probable that Pope had been working on
the edition for some time. The translation of the Odyssey proved a
diverting influence, however, and it is apparent that more and more
of the actual collation was done by his assistants, Fenton and Gay.
Fenton was paid 30 pounds, 14 shillings by Tonson and 25 pounds later
5
on, while Gay received 35 pounds, 6 pence. Pope also asks Tonson for
35 pounds to pay "a man or two here at Oxford to ease me of part of
the drudgery of Shakespear". These men did not always work separately,
as the following passage from a le tte r of Pope’s to Tonson illustrates:
... my affairs have hurried me to and from London, interchangeably
every day; the la st part of the planting season taking me up here,
and business which I think less agreeable, there. I ’m resolved to
pass the next whole week in London, purposely to get together
parties of my acquaintance every night, to collate the several edi
tions of Shakespear’s single plays — five of which I have engaged
to this design.'
4 Sherburn, p. 238.
5
Gentleman*s Magazine, 1787, lv ii, p. 75.
A
Sherburn, Appendix I , p. 307.
^ Ib id ., p. 235; Appendix I, p. 308.
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Nevertheless, the responsibility of the entire edition rested
with Pope, and he was to receive either the praise o? the blame of
later c ritic s. The edition was nearly completed by the summer of
1724. Fenton declared that he was preparing the Index on June 19, 1724
and by October 31, Pope wrote:
Shakespear is finished. I have just w ritten the preface, and in
less than three weeks it w ill be public.9
The publication was delayed, however, until March 12 of the next year,
1725.
The work itself is in six quarto volumes with an individual
10
title-page in each volume dated 1723. In the first volume there is
an additional title-page which reads: The Works of Shakespear. In Six
Volumes Collated and Corrected by the Former Editions, By Mr. Pope.
[.Latin inscription^ London. Printed for Jacob Tonson in the Strand
1725. opposite title-page is a portrait of Shakespeare after an
engraving by G. Vertue. The preface follows the title-page, and this
is followed in turn by a bust of Shakespeare after the Chandos Portrait
Howe’s life , a testament of Shakespeare’s right to a coat of arms,
Jonson’s lines (To the memory of my Beloved the Author, William Shake
spear), the names of 411 Subscribers, and the second (1723) title-page.
® Elwin-Courthope, VIII, p. 82.
9 * p- 88«
^ For a complete description of the edition see Hans Schmidt, Die
Shakespeare Ausgabe von Pope, Dormstadt (Giessen D issertation), 1912.
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V
Volumes I and II contain the Comedies; vo&umes III and IV, the
H istories (including King Lear) in the order in which the kings lived;
volume V, the Tragedies from History (Timon of Athens, Coriolanus,
Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, Macbeth), and
volume VI, Tragedies from Fable (Troilus and Creasida, Cymbeline, Romeo
and Ju lie t, Hamlet, Othello),
At the end of the sixth volume there are seven indexed sections
presented under the general title of Index of the Characters, Sentiments,
Speeches and Descriptions in Shakespear. And finally, there is A Table
of the Several Editions of Shakespear* s Plays, made use of and compared
in th is Impression. There are listed here quartos for Midsummer;Might*s
Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of Venice, Love * s
Labour*s Lost, King Lear, Richard I I , Henry IV, Parts j. and J[I, Henry V,
Richard II I, Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Oressida, Romeo and Ju lie t,
Hamlet, and Othello. In addition Pope lists The Whole Contention as a
source for Henry VI Parts II and III, and The Taming of a Shrew; he
also mentions in a footnote to King John that he has the old play, The
Troublesome Reigne, although he doesn't put it in his lis t in volume VI.
Pope inoludes the first and second folios in this section, but his
primary source is always Rowe's second edition (1714)
^ See Schmidt, pp. 28-32. Rowe*s first edition appeared in 1709.
Wherever Rowe's text is mentioned in this dissertation, the reference
is always to the second edition unless otherwise stated.
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vi
There was a seventh volume containing Shakespeare’s Poems
printed in 1725, as a companion piece to the Playsjby Dr. Sewell, but
Pope seems to have had no connection with it.
The appearance of the volumes launched a Shakespeare controversy
between Lewis Theobald and Pope which was to last for years. While
there is unquestionably a personal side to the quarrel, this discussion
w ill confine itse lf solely to the conflict of ideas in which the men
were engaged. These ideas and the way in which they apply to Pope’s
edition w ill be the subject of the following pages.
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