The Poly-Olbion Project

迈克尔·德雷顿的《波利-奥尔比昂》于1612年和1622年分两部分出版，是一部描述民族的史诗。这首15000行诗按照地形结构，分为30首歌，分别讲述了英格兰和威尔士不同的郡或地区。这首诗的时代已经诞生了克里斯托弗·萨克斯顿的《地图集》和威廉·卡姆登的《不列颠》，其中包含了大量的历史和地理材料。比如，书中有篇幅很长的段落，讲述了这个国家的君主、圣人和内战，还有鸟类、树木和花卉的目录。除了这首诗之外，前十八首歌曲还配有散文“插图”，由17世纪最伟大的知识分子之一约翰·塞尔登（John Selden）撰写。这些古怪的、离题的、深奥的笔记，总共110页，本身就值得关注。最后，每首歌之前都有一张地图，由威廉·霍尔雕刻。虽然这首诗在詹姆士王朝的宫廷里影响不大，让德雷顿在寻求赞助方面感到沮丧，但自出版以来的四个世纪里，它一直赢得了广泛的读者。然而，波利-奥尔比昂还没有独立的学术版本，而现有的权威版本，作为德雷顿作品的一卷，出版于1933年，它的文本结构和注释都是过时的和轻微的。因此，这首诗没有像德雷顿同时代的许多诗那样受到评论界的关注。考虑到它本身的学术水平和细节，这首诗的欣赏无疑受到了影响。这个项目的目的是用一个新的版本作为工具，在我们的国家和地区文化中恢复这首诗。该项目的基础是产生新版本所需的学术工作。这部作品在文本方面并不特别复杂，因为德雷顿给我们留下了可靠的印刷来源；然而，鉴于德雷顿和塞尔登的作品的重要性和牛津大学出版社的期望，将他们的文本注释到适当的水平是更复杂的。该项目旨在进一步产生Poly-Olbion的学术工作，最终以会议和出版的论文卷结束。虽然学术版和批判性出版物可以合理地期望引起学术读者的注意，但该项目也旨在吸引更广泛的读者。它假设Poly-Olbion，其丰富的细节，是一个潜在的访问和吸引任何英国居民的文本。该项目网站将包括一个开放获取版本的文本，并附有地点的链接索引和谷歌地图的链接。此外，项目团队将与“闪光艺术”（“FSA”）合作，这是一个非营利性的创意艺术组织，通过音乐、诗歌和视觉艺术来影响社会变革，特别是在遗产教育领域。FSA将签约举办涉及有特殊教育需要的儿童的讲习班，使用创新的方法介绍、探索和重新解释Poly-Olbion。FSA的主管们还将与项目团队合作，在皇家地理学会举办一个相关的公共展览和学术会议。提议的PI和CI是文艺复兴时期在德雷顿研究领域享有盛誉的文学学者。被提议的ARF 1将负责为德雷顿的诗制作大部分文本注释，他是一名博士生，将于2012年9月接受审查，他支持PI和CI的一个试点项目，制作了这首诗第一首歌的在线版本。拟议中的ARF2将负责对塞尔登的文本进行注释，他是一位在沃伯格受过训练的知识历史学家，根据他的相关技能和专业知识被确定。

Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion, published in two parts in 1612 and 1622, is an epic of national description. Structured topographically, into thirty songs devoted to different counties or regions of England and Wales, the 15,000-line poem, a product of an era that had already produced Christopher Saxton's Atlas and William Camden's Britannia, includes an enormous range of historical and geographical material. There are extended passages, for instance, on the nation's monarchs, saints and civil wars, as well as catalogues of birds, trees and flowers. In addition to the poem, the first eighteen songs are accompanied by prose 'illustrations', written by one of the greatest intellectual figures of the seventeenth century, John Selden. These quirky, digressive and deeply learned notes, totalling c.110 folio pages, demand attention in their own right. Finally, each song is preceded by a map, engraved by William Hole. While the poem made little impact at the Jacobean court, leaving Drayton frustrated in his quest for patronage, it has won a consistently wide readership over the four centuries since its publication. Yet Poly-Olbion has not been the subject of an independent scholarly edition, and the existing authoritative edition, published in 1933 as one volume of Drayton's Works, is at once dated and slight in its textual apparatus and annotation. The poem has therefore enjoyed nothing like the editorial attention that has been committed to many of Drayton's contemporaries. Given its own level of scholarship and detail, appreciation of the poem has doubtless suffered as a result. This project aims to use a new edition as a vehicle to resituate the poem within our national and regional cultures. The project's foundation is the scholarly work required to produce that new edition. This work is not especially complex in textual terms, since Drayton left us with a reliable printed source; however, it is more complex given the aim to annotate the texts of both Drayton and Selden to an appropriate level, in light of the importance of their works and the expectations of Oxford University Press. The project aims further to generate scholarly work on Poly-Olbion, culminating in a conference and a published volume of essays. While a scholarly edition and critical publications may reasonably be expected to command attention among an academic readership, the project also aims to reach a wider audience. It posits that Poly-Olbion, with its wealth of detail, is potentially an accessible and engaging text to any inhabitant of the United Kingdom. The project website will include an open-access version of the text, with a linked index of places and connections to googlemaps. Moreover, the project team will work in collaboration with 'Flash of Splendour Arts' ('FSA'), a not-for-profit creative arts organisation that works with music, poetry and the visual arts to effect societal change, particularly within the field of heritage education. FSA will be contracted to present workshops involving children with special educational needs, using innovative methodologies to introduce, explore and reinterpret Poly-Olbion. The directors of FSA will also collaborate with the project team on a linked public exhibition and academic conference at the Royal Geographical Society. The proposed PI and CI are Renaissance literary scholars with established reputations in the field of Drayton studies. The proposed ARF 1, who would be responsible for producing much of the textual annotation of Drayton's poem, is a PhD student due to be examined in September 2012, who supported the PI and CI on a pilot project that produced an online edition of the poem's first song. The proposed ARF2, who would be responsible for annotation of Selden's text, is a Warburg-trained intellectual historian who has been identified on the basis of his relevant skills and expertise.