The Variorum Edition of the Plays of W. B. Yeats

1359 Pages·1966·84.978 MB·English

by  Russell K. Alspach (eds.)

THE VARIORUM EDITION
OF THE PLAYS OF
W. B. YEATS
RUSSELL K. ALSPACH
THE VARIORUM EDITION
OF THE PLAYS OF
WO lEo YEA
1r§
Edited by Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach
THE VARIORUM EDITION OF THE
POEMS OF W. B. YEATS
By Russell K. Alspach
IRISH POETRY FROM THE ENGLISH
INVASION TO 1798
THE VARIORUM EDITION
OF THE PLAYS OF
W. B. YEATS
EDITED BY
RUSSELL K ALSPACH
UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY
ASSISTED BY
CATHARINE C. ALSPACH
M
MACMILLAN
© Russell K. Alspach and Bertha Georgie Yeats 1966
© Macmillan & Co Ltd. 1965
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1965 978-0-333-06532-7
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No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
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First edition 1966
Reprinted 1966 (twice), 1969, 1979, 1989
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Printed in Great Britain by
The Ipswich Book Company Ltd.
Ipswich, Suffolk
ISBN 978-1-349-00443-0 ISBN 978-1-349-00441-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00441-6
To
the memory oj
PETER ALLT
CONTENTS
p.\o.
PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTION XI
LIST OF PLAYS xvii
BIBLIOGRAPHY xix
THE COLLATIONS xxv
ApPENDIX I: GENERAL NOTES-
The Pronunciation of the Irish Words 1282
The Legendary and Mythological Foundation of the Plays
and Poems 1282
The Legendary and Mythological Foundation of the Plays 1283
Glossary 1284
ApPENDIX II: PREFACES AND DEDICATIONS 1288
ApPENDIX III: DATES, PLACES OF PERFORMANCES, AND CASTS OF
CHARACTERS OF FIRST PRODUCTIONS 1313
INDEX:
PART I: CHARACTERS
PART II: GENERAL
vii
PREFACE
I HAVE dedicated this book to Peter AlIt. Before:; his death in 1954 we
had talked hopefully of a variorum edition of Yeats's plays that we
should do after finishing our variorum edition of the poems. I hope
that what I have accomplished here is worthy of the dedication.
My dbligations are many. Mrs. Yeats's generosity in releasing the
necessary copyrights made publication possible; and she was kind
enough to read and approve a portion of the manuscript that I showed
her in Dublin in the summer of I 963. Those days in Dublin were marked
also by many kindnesses from Jo and Liam Miller and David Krause,
professor of English at Brown University, including criticism of the
manuscript and help in the overcoming of technicalities having to do
with publication.
Mr. R. L. De Wilton of The Macmillan Company of New York, who
was of so much assistance in the publication of the variorum poems,
has been of equal assistance in the general preparation of the variorum
plays. Mr. A. L. Hart,Jr., and Mr. Arthur Gregor, of the same company,
were of special help a number of times. Mr. T. M. Farmiloe of
Macmillan & Co. Ltd. of London was patient and helpful during the
reading of proof.
Professors Marion Witt and Katherine Gatch of Hunter College
read early drafts of the manuscript and gave me counsel about methods
of collation and style in general. I am much indebted to them. Pro
fessor MacEdward Leach of the University of Pennsylvania made
several helpful suggestions; Professor Allan Chester of the same Uni
versity read critically part of the manuscript; Professor George Brandon
Saul of the University of Connecticut discussed with me matters of
general format; and Lieutenant-Colonels Wilfred C. Burton and
George W. Tracy, associate professors of English at West Point, aided
in many ways. The staff of the United States Military Academy
Library, especially Miss Thelma Bedell, were prompt and efficient
in granting my many requests.
The task of matching up and typing the main text and the variants
was skilfully done by Miss Ann Hessian, ably assisted by Miss Genevieve
Crane. Finally I want to thank the children of the late T. B. Rogers,
of Birmingham, England, and Mrs. Marilyn Hogan of Detroit, for
cheerfully lending me much-needed texts; and Mrs. Sally Anderson
for assistance with the make-up of certain pages.
I have acknowledged on the title-page my deepest obligation.
West Point, New York R.K.A.
March,1964
IX
INTRODUCTION
IN 1956, shortly after completing the manuscript of The Variorum
Edition of the Poems of W. B. Teats, I began working on the variorum
edition of the plays. My purpose here is to discuss some of the major
editorial and bibliographical problems I encountered during the years
of composition.
The first was that of a basic text. For the poetry this problem had
been easy: shortly before his death Yeats had revised his poetry and
signed pages for a de luxe edition to be published by Macmillan &
Co. Ltd. But World War II intervened and it was not until 1949 that
the handsome, two-volume final revised edition of the poetry was
published. Ready to hand, therefore, was an authoritative basic text
for the poetry variorum.
But there was no such final revised text of the plays. The best seemed
to be the London Macmillan edition of The Collected Plays of W. B.
Teats (1952). The plays in this edition and its New York Macmillan
counterpart of 1953, with the exception of 'A Full Moon in March',
'The King of the Great Clock Tower', 'The Herne's Egg', 'Purgatory',
and 'The Death of Cuchulain', were reprintings with few and unim
portant changes of The Collected Plays of W. B. Teats (1934) that Yeats
had carefully revised. The user of the present book must trust his
judgment in assessing the slight textual changes between the editions
of 1934 and 1952; and also between Nine One-Act Plays (1937)I and the
edition of the collected plays in 1952.
The second problem was page set-up. Because the set-up of the
poetry variorum had apparently met with approval, I decided to use
it again, although it could not be strictly followed in all the plays
(some of these I discuss below). A glance at p. 214-the first page of
'Cathleen ni Houlihan'-will make the set-up clear. The material
above the line dividing the page is the basic text-The Collected Plays
of W. B. Teats (London, I952)-with which the variants below the
line are collated and keyed. 'Printings' lists the publications of the
play; the numbers refer to the numbered bibliography on pp. xix-xxiv.
The remainder of the material below the line is self-evident.
The plays are in the order of The Collected Plays of 1952, and are set
up in a fashion generally similar to the example above, but some needed
special treatment. The first such was 'The Countess Cathleen'.
The Printingsz of 'The Countess Cathleen' begin with The Countess
I The textual evidence suggests that Yeats probably did little mo~ than select the nine
plays. • Pp. 2-3.
. xi
xu INTRODUCTION
Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892). It was republished in
Poems (1895); in The Poetical Works of William B. Teats (1907); in The
Collected Works in Verse and Prose, Vol. III (1908); by itself titled The
Countess Cathleen (1912); in the Tauchnitz edition (1913); in Selected
Poems (1921); in Plays and Controversies (1923, 1924); with The Land oj
Heart's Desire (1924, 1925); in The Collected Plays oj W. B. Teats (1934,
1935); and in The Colle,.cted Plays oj W. B. Teats (1952, 1953).
Yeats revised 'The Countess Cathleen' frequently. The revision for
the second printing, Poems (1895), was so drastic that intelligible col
lation was virtually impossible. I decided, therefore, to print the
original version (1892) complete on-the verso pages and to print above
the line on the recto pages the basic text of 1952, with collations of
all other printings-that of 1895 to that of 934-below the line. Even
I
so, the additions and deletions were so great that the collations fre
quently extend for several extra pages before they can be brought into
some harmony again wit~ the basic text. Similarities between the
original version and the basic text I showed by bracketed line-numbers
in the verso margins; identities by unbracketed line-numbers.
Pp. 152-3 illustrate this set-up and arrangement of 'The Countess
Cathleen'. The first is a verso page and will face the second, a recto
page. In these pages the original version is closer to the basic text than
elsewhere, but even so there are no identities, although lines [831]-757
and [832]-758 are close. '
Compounding the collation problem of 'The Countess Cathleen'
was the shift Yeats made from five scenes in the original printing
(1892) to four acts in the second printing (1895). He kept the four
acts until 1912, when he restored the five-scene arrangement that he
retained through the final version. Because of this shift from five scenes
to four acts and back again, I decided that collation would be more
understandable if I numbered the lines consecutively throughout the
play with no break between scenes or acts, but with scene- and act-
changes marked both above and below the line. '
Yeats revised each of the printings from 1895 to 1908; he revised
rather extensively, besides restoring the five scenes, for the printings
of 1912: The Countess Cathleen (june), The Poetical Works oj William B.
Teats, Vol. II, Dramatic Poems (August), and Poems (September).
Yeats scholars and bibliographers have as a rule assumed that the
revision of 1912 was, except for quite minor changes, the final version.1
But examination of the Tauchnitz edition, published quite early in
1913,z proves the assumption wrong. Besides making this wrong
I For example, Allan Wade, in A Bibliography of 1M Writings of W. B. r,ats, 2nd ed., revd.
London, 1958, items 93-100. • Ibid., item 103.