The Manuscripts of Ben Jonson and his Contemporaries

《本·琼生及其同时代人的手稿》关注的是对17世纪早期和中期文学手稿的调查和理解，以及文本与人工制品之间的关系。这项研究涉及数百卷手稿的研究，琼森，弗朗西斯博蒙，约翰·罗伊爵士和托马斯爵士奥弗伯里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因的诗歌。例如，它已经确定了尼古拉斯·黑尔（Nicholas Hare）写的更多诗歌（因此从多恩正典中去除了“品种”的属性）。最重要的是，这项研究首次将琼森在诗歌手稿传播中的作用置于详细审查之下。它采用codicological，水印，palaeographic，和文本分析，重新日期，de-attribute，和/或属性的文本和文件。此外，它还论证了琼森参与该时期手稿实践的重要性，以及他后来从手稿而不是印刷品编辑诗歌和假面剧的重要性。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作，对它们构成的社会和文本网络的理解，以及对幸存版本用于编辑目的的有用性的分析。虽然这本书将主要在其方法论上进行分析，但这种方法是通过文本活动的社会理论来构思的。正如麦肯齐所坚持的那样，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人群。同样，手稿的流通涉及社会合作和交换的形式，以及个人的煽动和代理。这里的意图不仅仅是支持“文本社会学”，因为这个短语掩盖了所谓的“文献考古学”。这本书试图推动讨论，在编辑理论方面，其意图是脱离流行的假设，主张一种重建性的考古学方法，将历史证据的分层与传统学术的语言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献的研究中产生，而不是强加于文献之上。因此，《本·琼森及其同时代人的手稿》试图解决我们对现代早期文本和文献的产生和传播的理解中的几个空白。未充分利用的社会文献形式，以及词干分析，为手稿结构的技术分析提供了背景，它们被写的脚本，以及其他材料细节，如纸张的研究，以及可以从装订中引用的证据。重点不在于妨碍文本，而在于在适当的地方指出各种证据之间的联系和不连续性，以便这些文献传播的人类故事可能开始浮现。这项研究对理解琼森诗歌的影响要求对证据进行稍微更广泛的考虑，而不仅仅是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，几乎是法医学的，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，关于我们一旦得到这些信息会如何处理，关于它对琼森和多恩的研究意味着什么，以及关于它如何改变我们对早期现代文学的理解。因此，这本书将为我将于2008年出版的牛津版琼森的《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.