Required materials:
Mid-Term (take-home)
Read and answer the whole question in every case. I want concise answers--quality over quantity. Do not give me any extraneous information (it will not earn you any credit); just answer the question. One the other hand, use everything you know; use the terminology and the principles you have learned to solve these problems. You should be able to answer the questions (at least adequately) fairly easily (which isn't the same as quickly), so don't panic--think.
1. To what source would you turn first to find:
[answer ten--and only ten]
a. the major proponent of Archetypal Criticism
b. the winner of the Booker [British novel] prize for 1980
c. an influential essay on post-structuralism
d. a review of a novel published 25 Feb. 1993 by Salman Rushdie
e. a book or article on Kurds in America
f. whether anyone had yet written a dissertation on Madonna
g. a full citation for de Guilleville's Pilgrimage of the Life of Man
h. the real name of P.D. James
j. the earliest use of the phrase "to get the cart before the horse"
k. the nearest library that has the complete works of Voltaire
l. the nationality of Nadine Gordimer
m. a list of popes
n. the address of a learned journal published in Germany
2. You hold a book in your hand. You open it and find a title-page followed by a dedication page. You note that the last page in the book is numbered 192. You leaf through it but do not find any signatures or catchwords. You find a plate on f. 43 and another on f. 75. You look for binding threads, but you can only see them between ff. 11 and 12 and again between 60 and 61. What is its probable makeup? Express your answer in the form of a collation formula as explained in Greetham, pp. 163-66 (you may want to refer to the chapter on printed books, as well). There is more than one correct way of expressing your answer. If you would like to add a little prose explanation or a diagram, feel free, but don't feel obliged.
3. Attached to this sheet are extracts from three editions of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Read them carefully. Then evaluate the three editions in light of what you have learned about kinds of editions and authoritative editions and tell me which, if any, you would call scholarly and why. Can you tell me which is the copy-text for each?
N.B.: I have given you a little more than the minimal information you need to answer the question. Don't be overwhelmed by it; if some of it seems extraneous to you, just ignore it--but look at it all carefully first.
Mid-Term (make-up)
I. (40%)
If the collation formula is 8o: [a]4, A-G8, X6, H-N8, O2,
1. assuming that X [chi] is paginated, what page number probably appears on O2v?
2. which leaf is conjugate with f. 65?
3. if H is printed on a single sheet, with which leaf is the
top of H2 conjugate (before the book is "opened")?
(Refer to your printed material.)
4. are the quires signed?
II. (60%)
These 3 extracts are taken from the introductions to editions of works of Sir Philip Sidney. Read all three carefully before planning you answer. Then evaluate them in light of what you know about textual reliability and responsible editing. Bear in mind that there are no absolutes in these matters: "scholarliness" spans one end of a continuum, and absolute scholarliness is probably something no two scholars could agree on.
(1) From The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. John Drinkwater, London: Routledge, 1910:
The text is based on the two quarto editions of Astrophel and Stella (1591), and the folio editions of the Arcadia (1598 and 1613). I am also largely indebted to Grosart's edition of Sidney's poems in the Fuller Worthies' Library (1873), and to Arber's English Garner (1897). Grosart, his editorial sins notwithstanding, has laid every student of Sidney under a deep obligation by his laborious collation of the old editions, and especially by his handling of the punctuation. In many cases I have accepted his decision on matters both of text and pointing, but in every instance where any doubt has arisen, I have, after careful consideration, adopted what appeared to me to be the most satisfactory reading.
(2) From Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Max Putzel, New York: Doubleday, 1967:
This edition of Astrophil and Stella is made possible through the generosity of Professor William A. Ringler, Jr., and the Clarendon Press, Oxford. Like Ringler's, it is based on the fine text contained in the 1598 folio of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (STC 22541), though it retains the stanzaic arrangement of the sonnets in that edition, which Ringler has abandoned in his definitive The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney [Oxford Univ. Press, 1962]. Ringler feels that the pirated quartos and two of the manuscripts he collated. . .derive from earlier, more reliable sources than were available to the editors of the 1598 folio, even though the printers of the quartos introduced errors not found in the folio. He preserves the Elizabethan spelling, though he places no reliance on the punctuation.
In the present edition, both spelling and punctuation have been modernized in accordance with principles adopted by the most competent editors of Shakespeare, notably the editors of the New Arden edition. These principles demand that peculiarly Elizabethan forms be retained only when they affect sound or sense in a substantive way. In all other cases a normal modern spelling or pointing is substituted. I have tried to retain any usage expressive of the poet's intentional ambiguity.
(3) From Carl Dennis's introduction to the photographic facsimile of the 1590 edition of The Covntesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, Written by Sir Philippe Sidnei., Kent State University Press, 1970:
I have chosen the printed text of 1590 to be the text of this edition of the Arcadia because it is more authentic and coherent than the composite edition of 1593. The later text was obtained by the editors, adding to the 1590 edition the last three books of the unrevised original Arcadia.* This addition completes the story but undermines the internal logic of Sidney's incomplete revision. It makes no attempt to resolve the martial struggles of Book III, toward which the entire action of the revision leads, dismissing the conflict in a sentence. [more inconsistencies follow]. . .
*The introduction to Sidney's Arcadia in the Norton Anthology contains the following statement:To everyone: Check everything. I am not responsible for correcting your work; you are.When the "Old Arcadia" was completed, Sidney began to recast and expand it, but left the revision unfinished. This revised fragment, almost three books, is known as the "New Arcadia;" it was published in 1590. In 1593 the Countess of Pembroke [Sydney's sister] republished it with slight changes and added the last three books of the "Old Arcadia." (The complete "Old Arcadia" was not published until the twentieth century.)
Final Examination
Identifications--25 points
Answer fifteen. Be brief (in some--not all--cases a word or phrase will do). You may do them in any order, so number your answers and do not repeat the questions.
List I List IIShort essays--75 points1. variorum 1. web-fed press 2. TLS 2. pirated text 3. font 3. embrittled 4. octavo 4. a bastard script 5. codex 5. accidental 6. incunabulum 6. Aldus Manutius 7. colophon 7. sans-serif 8. collation 8. philology 9. minuscule 9. eclectic editing 10. black letter 10. cursive 11. Baskerville 11. paleography 12. private press 12. provenance 13. etymology 13. facsimile 14. codex 14. DNB 15. descriptive bibliography 15. compositor's stick 16. microform 16. textual notes
Answer ten. Answers should be 4-5 sentences, or as appropriate (whatever it takes to answer the question). Number your answers but do not repeat the questions. You may do them in any order. Be concise; you will not get credit for irrelevant information.
1. What advantages does the rotary press have over the earlier reciprocal (platen) press?
2. What sorts of solutions are librarians considering to solve some of the many problems presented to them by books produced between about 1850 and the present?
3. Explain the "offset" printing method.
4. If you compared a late medieval manuscript with an uncunable, what would you be likely to discover?
5. Explain how a watermark was produced in early book paper. Is it produced the same way today?
6. Why is a medieval binding usually stronger than a modern binding?
7. Explain the salient differences between Monotype, Linotype, and stereotype. During what period was each used?
8. What are some of the problems the idea (or ideal) of "authorial intention" raises?
9. Of what use is a sound knowledge of printing history?
10. What gives a text "authority" for an editor?
11. Explain how the performance of medieval plays can aid scholars working on early drama.
12. What are some of the kinds of skills vital to good, solid literary research?
Rev 11/97