The Manuscripts of Ben Jonson and his Contemporaries

本·琼森和他的同代人的手稿主要关注对17世纪初和中期的文学手稿的考察和理解，以及文本与人工制品的关系。这项研究涉及对数百卷手稿的研究，对琼森、弗朗西斯·博蒙特、约翰·罗爵士和托马斯·奥弗伯里爵士的所有幸存手稿文本的转录，以及几首著名的匿名或可疑归属的诗歌。例如，它还确认了尼古拉斯·黑尔(Nicholas Hare)写的更多诗歌(因此从唐纳正典中去掉了“综艺”的名称)。最重要的是，这项研究第一次对琼森在诗歌手稿传播中的作用进行了审视。它使用编纂、水印、古地理和文本分析来重新确定文本和文档的日期、去掉属性和/或属性。此外，它还论证了琼森参与这一时期的手稿实践的意义，以及他后来的诗歌和面具的编辑是从手稿而不是印刷出来的。这本书试图解决的广泛领域包括这些文件的早期历史和创建，对它们构成的社会和文本网络的理解，以及对幸存版本的编辑用途的分析。尽管该书在方法论上主要是分析性的，但这种方法是通过文本活动的社会理论来构思的。正如麦肯齐坚持的那样，所有的书籍和大多数手稿都存在于社会背景中：创造、传播和消费书面或印刷文字的群体。同样，手稿的流通也涉及社会合作和交流的形式，以及个人煽动和代理的形式。这里的意图并不是简单地支持“文本社会学”，因为这个短语掩盖了所谓的“文献考古学”。这本书试图做的是让讨论继续下去。在编辑学理论方面，其意图是背离普遍存在的假设，主张一种重建的考古学方法，将历史证据的分层与传统学术的文献学和文本方法联系起来。重要的一点是，这种方法的有效性应该从对文件的研究中显现出来，而不是强加于文件。因此，本·琼森和他的同代人的手稿试图解决我们在早期现代时期对文本和文件的产生和传播的理解上的几个空白。未得到充分利用的社会文献形式，以及词干分析，为对手稿的结构、手稿所用的文字以及其他材料细节进行技术分析提供了背景，例如对纸张的研究，以及可以从装订中引证的证据。重点不是阻碍文本，而是在适当的地方指出各种证据之间的联系和不连续，以便这些文件传递的人类故事可能开始出现。这项研究对于理解琼森的诗歌的意义要求对证据的稍微更广泛的考虑，而不是简单地记录各种手稿之间的关系。如果有时使用的方法是技术性的，几乎是法医性质的，那是因为它们必须证明某些事情是可能的，而其他事情是不可能的，或者(至少)不太可能。更大的争论是关于编辑过程，关于一旦我们掌握了这些信息，我们如何处理它，关于它对琼森和多恩的研究意味着什么，以及它如何改变我们对早期现代文学的更广泛的理解。因此，这本书将为我将于2008年出版的旧拼写牛津版琼森的《诗》提供背景。

The Manuscripts of Ben Jonson and his Contemporaries' is concerned with the investigation and understanding of literary manuscripts from the early and mid seventeenth century, and the relationship between text and artefact. The research has involved the study of several hundred manuscript volumes, the transcription of all the surviving manuscript texts of Jonson, Francis Beaumont, Sir John Roe, and Sir Thomas Overbury, as well as several well-known anonymous or doubtfully attributed poems. It has, for instance, identified further poems written by Nicholas Hare (and thus de-attributed 'Variety' from the Donne canon). Most importantly, the research has placed Jonson's role in the manuscript transmission of poetry under scrutiny for the first time. It employs codicological, watermark, palaeographical, and textual analysis to re-date, de-attribute, and/or attribute texts and documents. Further, it argues both for the significance of Jonson's involvement in the manuscript practices of the period, as well as for the editing of his later poems and masques from manuscript rather than print. The broad areas that the book seeks to address include the early history and creation of these documents, an understanding of the social and textual networks of which they form a part, and an analysis of the usefulness of the surviving versions for editorial purposes.Although the book will be primarily analytical in its methodology, that approach has been conceived through a social theory of textual activity. As McKenzie insisted, all books and most manuscripts exist in social contexts: groups of people who create, transmit, and consume the written or printed word. Likewise, the circulation of manuscripts involves forms of social co-operation and exchange, as well as individual instigation and agency. The intention, here, is not simply to argue in favour of 'a sociology of texts', for that phrase disguises what might be called 'the archaeology of the document'. What the book attempts to do is move the discussion on. In terms of editorial theory, the intention is to depart from prevailing assumptions and argue for a reconstructive archaeological approach that links the layering of historical evidence with the philological and textual methods of traditional scholarship. The important point is that the validity of such an approach should emerge from the study of the documents rather than be imposed upon them.Thus, 'The Manuscripts of Ben Jonson and his Contemporaries' seeks to address several gaps in our understanding of the production and transmission of texts and documents in the early modern period. Under-utilised forms of social documentation, as well as stemmatic analysis, provide the context for a technical analysis of the structure of the manuscripts, the scripts in which they are written, and other material details such as the study of paper, and the evidence that can be adduced from bindings. The point is not to encumber the text, but to point up where appropriate the connections and discontinuities between the various kinds of evidence, so that the human story of the transmission of these documents might begin to emerge.The implications of this study for the understanding Jonson's poetry requires that a slightly broader account of the evidence be taken than simply documenting the relationship between various manuscripts. If, at times, the methods used are technical, almost forensic, that is because they have to be to demonstrate that certain things are possible and other things are not, or are (at least) less likely. The larger argument is about the editorial process, about what we do with this information once we have it, about what it means for the study of Jonson and Donne in particular, and about how it changes our understanding of the literature of the early modern period more generally. As such, the book will provide the background to my old-spelling Oxford edition of Jonson's 'Poems' to be published in 2008.