Complete Works of Robert Browning 2: With Variant Readings and Annotations (Complete Works Robert Browning)

443 Pages·1971·23.7 MB·English

by  Robert Browning

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING

‘Unrinnt Qdings Jnnotations
E D I T O R I A LB O A R D
ROMAA . KING, JR., GeneralEditor
MORSE PECKHAAT
PARK HONAN
P
GORDON PI1’1’S
OHIOU NIVERSITYP RESS
ATHENS,O HIO 1970
I
Copyright o 1970 by Ohio University Press
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-18389
ISBN 82 14-74-6
All rights reserved
Printed in the United Stateso f America
CONTENTS
Page Number
Preface
I Contents vii
I1 PrinTcei pxGlteue san le ral vii
111 SPproebc ilfeimc s
Ed Biitnri n ogw niWnigox ’r s k s
Choice IV xii of Text
...
V Presentation of Variants x1.1.1.
Table of Signs x111
Collation VI xv
xvi Annotations VI1
Table of Abbreviations
Axvnin ot a tioinns Used
VI11 Table of xMvaiin us cripts
xCixoI rXre c tionfos r Re quest
xixX Ac knowledgments
?’able of EditionRs eferredt oi nV olumTe wox x
Page Number
STRAFFORD 3 in Original
Edition
Act One 13 1
Act Two 38 33
Act Three 57 57
Act Four 77 83
Act Five 98 IO9
SORDELLO 121
Book One 125 1
Book Two 157 44
Book Three 191 87
Book Four 229 130
Book Five 266 173
Book Six 303 216
Editorial Notes
st 1 c1ffOl-d 339
Sol-tlello 36 1
“Holy Roman Empire, 1 138-1254” 362
“Provine of Veneto” 363
V
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
PREFACE
I CONTENTS
This edition of the works of Robert Browning is intended to be
complete. It is expected to run to thirteen volumes and will contain:
1. The full contents of the first editions of Browning’s work, ar-
ranged in chronological ordeTr. he poems included inD rarnnt ic Lyrics,
DramnIic Romunces ctncl Lyrics, and Men n ~ IdT,’o mer1 appear in the
order of their first publication rather than the order in which Brow-
ning rearranged them for later publication.
2. All prefaces, dedications? and advertisements which Browning
wrote for his own works or for those of Elizabeth Barrett Browning
and others.
3. The two known prose essays which Browning published: the
review of a book on Tasso, generally referred to as “The Essay on
Chatterton,” and the preface for a collection of letters supposed to
haveb een written by PercyB ysshe Shelley, generally referred to as
“The Essay on Shelley.’’
4. The front matter and the table of contents of each of the col-
lected editions (18 49,1 863,1 868,1 888-89aY and 1889)w hichB row-
ning himself saw through the press. The table of contents will include
both the paginationo f the original volume andof this edition.
5. Poems by Browning published during his lifetime but not col-
lected by him.
6. Unpublished poems by Browning which havec ome to light
since his death.
7. John Forster’s Thomas 11,’entZUOr/h, Earl ofSIy.ccfford to which
Browning contributed significantly? though to what precise extent can-
not be determined.
11 GENERAL TEXTUAL PRINCIPLES
The assumptions on which we have prepared the text are, we
thirllr, reasonably straightforward, if not entirely conventional. Our
principal departure from current textuatlh eory is that we question the
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conventional meanings of text and author. For a work which varies
in a series of documents ande ditions, there is no such empirical entity
as the lext. Consequently, the problem of the transmission of the text
is not a real one; rather, the real problem is to understand the char-
acter of the decisions which were responsible for the successive and
varying states of the work. Conventionally, it isa ssumed that only
those texts should be used for which evidence of authorial control can
be demonstrated, but, as with text, the author is a constructed entity;
not only is it the fact that the author (conceived as a static entity) no
longer exists; it is equallyt he case thatt he author (so conceived)
never did exist. Our focus, therefore, shifts from text and author con-
ceived as static metaphysical entities to the dynamic process of creat-
ing and editing involved in the compilation of a series of documents.
Any writer’s work consists of two processes: he generates an ut-
terance and he corrects that utterance by balancing his current con-
ception of the coherence of what he has so far written, and his grasp
of the conventions applicable to the kind of discourse he is composing
as they then obtain anda s he understands them. Thus, insteado f mak-
ing a distinction between author and editor, we make a distinction
between authorial fknciion and editorial function. It appears to us
that in exercising his editorial functions the author’s basis for his ac-
tivity is continually changing, andm ay continue to change throughout
his life. His grasp of both the coherence of his work and of the con-
ventions may improve or deteriorate; he may come to feel that the
conventions are either more or less binding on him. Author refers,
then, not to a stable entity but to an unstable and continuously inno-
vating continuum.
Furthermore, a writer’s attitude towards the exercise of the edi-
torial function may vary from an insistence that he alone has the right
to exercise it to an acceptance of virtually any editorial decision made
by another. The explanation for this phenomenon is that the author,
ase very practicing author knowsi, s not necessarily theo ne best
equipped to balance the two demands at work in the editoriald ecision-
making process. If he is unusually intelligent and richly cultivated at
theh ighc ultural level, however, thep robabilityt hath e is best
equipped increases, especially if his cultural situation is relatively lim-
ited and stable and imposes upon him a demanding notion of the edi-
torial function. Consequently, theries no logical difference between an
author’s exercise of the editorial function and an editor’s, who is also
an unstable and continuously innovating continuum, bwuth ose edi to-
rial function is precisely the same as the author’s.
Other individuals also exercise the editorial function: the com-
positor, the printer, and the copyreader. In the history of printing,
each of these has been responsible for variants, and insofar as such
variants reflect a grasp of the coherence of the work and of current
. ..
Vlll
conventions, they cannot be classified as errors. An error is a variant
which self-evidently damages the coherence of the text and departs
from the conventions as the textual critic himself understands both
factors as they were at work in the historical situation from which the
work emerged. The history of printing has moved in the direction of
trying to limit the printer to errors, to train the compositor to set
only what is before him, and to restrict the copyreader to the detec-
tion of errors by requiring him to refer questionable variants to the
editor and author. Actual practice varies from house to house, within
the history of each house, and according to thek ind of discourse.
We also depart from one line of current textual theory by as-
suming that punctuation is not to be categorized as an accidental. An
accidental, we maintain, is a variant that cannot alter the semantic
function of the semiotic data. Spelling, for example, .caq &lay the
recognition of a semantic function, but if the current standard spell-
ing can be unequivocally substituted, theni t is truly ana ccidental, and
so with word divisions and the like. But whatever the semantic func--
tion of punctuation may be-and it is a matter which is little under-
stood-everyone feels it, though some feel it more than others, and
this instability of semiotic response is also true of authors. Punctua-
tion, under which we include paragraphing, does not merely affect
the semantic continuum; it is part of that continuum. Thus, thes tudy
of a series of editorial decisions in a passage involving only punctua-
tional variants can, and usually does, have both an interesting and an
important effect upon the interpretation of a passage. It seems to us,
therefore, that particularly in a nineteenth- or twentieth-century work,
punctuational variants must be considered as substantive changes and
so recorded.
The problem, then, is this. Given a work which varies in a series
of documents and editions, which document exhibits evidence of the
most adequate exercise of the editorial function, and on what grounds
is this decision to be made? Or, given a work which so varies but ap-
parently has never had adequate editing, to what degree should the
textual editor carry out the task? The textual editor must recognize
that he is not restoring or establishing a text, but is continuing the
editorial function initiated by the author. When it comes to what
variants to record and what emendations to make, the textual critic
cannot console himself by falling back on a nonexistent metaphysical
entity, the author.
111 SPECIFIC PROBLEMS IN EDITING BROWNING’S WORKS
The works of Browning offer few problems (though some are of
genuine interest) andp rovide a great redundance of data. Aside from
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