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Comparative Source Studies
My undergraduate school, New College in Sarasota, FL, encourages students to design their own majors: to go not where the path may lead, but to go where there is no path and leave a trail. I have always been interested in where ideas intersect. I designed a course of study that combined history, psychology, and sociology, and wrote my thesis on one point of intersection -- American propaganda in World War II.
Now that I have returned to school after working for several years, I am again studying where things intersect and weave together, and again I find myself creating my own course of study. Source studies are considered an "old-fashioned" field, one that seems to have been wrapped up a century ago. I believe that we have not yet learned all we can from the source materials used by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Marlowe, and other early modern playwrights. Specifically, while scholars of each individual playwright might understand that single playwright's sources, we do not have a clear sense, or a clear way of measuring, how those sources compare to the sources used by other playwrights, nor do we understand how those sources fit into the reading habits of the early modern public. My focus is not on source studies in the traditional fashion, but on comparative source studies: studies across playwrights and with a view toward public reading habits.
For the most part, scholars understand sources vertically -- the sources used by Shakespeare are seen as a field of study totally unrelated to the study of sources used by Middleton, despite the fact that the two men's reading clearly did overlap. To some extent, both are reading the same books, but using them in different ways. Why is that? What are the patterns in how they each used their sources? Most intriguing, does the way that one playwright uses a source affect that way that another playwright uses it? I want to understand sources not vertically, but horizontally -- as a mass of textual material from which all playwrights of the era drew, with areas of overlap, areas of dissimilarity, and possibly areas of competition or collaboration.
My first task is to create an early modern analogue of the bestseller list, which will be done by going through the Stationers' Company Register calculating reprints and print runs (some of this work has been done by Peter Blayney and others). The second step is to tag any books that are considered sources for early modern playwrights; first to associate the playwright's name (or names) with the book, then to associate the specific passage in the book with the play to which it is linked. Finally, I will build a search engine that allows users to search the sources both by text and by playwright. My goal is for scholars to be able to better understand which playwrights are using highly popular sources (bestsellers, to use an anachronistic term), which are using overlapping sources, and to begin to research patterns in the ways writers used their sources.
Now that I have returned to school after working for several years, I am again studying where things intersect and weave together, and again I find myself creating my own course of study. Source studies are considered an "old-fashioned" field, one that seems to have been wrapped up a century ago. I believe that we have not yet learned all we can from the source materials used by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Marlowe, and other early modern playwrights. Specifically, while scholars of each individual playwright might understand that single playwright's sources, we do not have a clear sense, or a clear way of measuring, how those sources compare to the sources used by other playwrights, nor do we understand how those sources fit into the reading habits of the early modern public. My focus is not on source studies in the traditional fashion, but on comparative source studies: studies across playwrights and with a view toward public reading habits.
For the most part, scholars understand sources vertically -- the sources used by Shakespeare are seen as a field of study totally unrelated to the study of sources used by Middleton, despite the fact that the two men's reading clearly did overlap. To some extent, both are reading the same books, but using them in different ways. Why is that? What are the patterns in how they each used their sources? Most intriguing, does the way that one playwright uses a source affect that way that another playwright uses it? I want to understand sources not vertically, but horizontally -- as a mass of textual material from which all playwrights of the era drew, with areas of overlap, areas of dissimilarity, and possibly areas of competition or collaboration.
My first task is to create an early modern analogue of the bestseller list, which will be done by going through the Stationers' Company Register calculating reprints and print runs (some of this work has been done by Peter Blayney and others). The second step is to tag any books that are considered sources for early modern playwrights; first to associate the playwright's name (or names) with the book, then to associate the specific passage in the book with the play to which it is linked. Finally, I will build a search engine that allows users to search the sources both by text and by playwright. My goal is for scholars to be able to better understand which playwrights are using highly popular sources (bestsellers, to use an anachronistic term), which are using overlapping sources, and to begin to research patterns in the ways writers used their sources.
Predictions, Opportunities, and Issues
Ideally, this project will allow us to see early modern playwrights as colleagues. Scholars have recently focused on collaboration, but that is only one part of the ways in which playwrights interact. They are also friends (or enemies); neighbors; viewers, readers, and critics of one another's plays; competitors; and coworkers within the larger theatre industry. I want to contribute to a more holistic understanding of their world, particularly in the area of the books they read and used for inspiration.
My first prediction of what such a database will show is an easy one: that Shakespeare will be wildly over-represented. His sources will seem to overshadow those of every other playwright, but this should be taken as exactly what it is--an artifact of his having enjoyed over four centuries of intense scholarly scrutiny. More complete study of the sources of Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, and others will eventually correct this artifact and bring Shakespeare's sources into a more proportionate relationship to theirs.
My intuitive sense is that the database will show that Shakespeare and Middleton are likely to have the most overlap with popular reading materials, with Jonson and the "university wits" having less overlap. However, I actually don't expect to find a great deal of overlap at all. Playwrights engage in a unique method of reading. They favor collections of stories, because they offer a multiplicity of plots to borrow, alter, and combine; and their reading is more utilitarian and goal-directed than the general public. Sermons, which were wildly popular early modern publications, are not likely to turn up frequently as playwrights' sources.
Although I do not expect to find a great deal of overlap with popular reading, I do expect to find a great deal of overlap between the playwrights; in fact, I expect the differences between them to be a matter of degree rather than kind. This, I think, underlines the ultimate goal of the project, which is to help scholars see playwrights as a group defined by their jobs and defined against the readers in their audiences. This is a relatively new way of seeing early modern playwrights, and I believe it opens scholarly possibilities in several directions.
There are two potential difficulties in creating this database--one small, and one more significant. The small issue is the amount of textual material that early modern playwrights read in a language other than English. Most of the group seem to have comfortably read Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, at a minimum. Tagging non-English texts as sources will be no different than tagging an English text: simply link the text to the author who used it. The trick is in making that text available for modern scholars to read. I plan to handle this by providing the text in its original language, since that is the source itself, but also providing a link to the earliest available translation of the text (probably, this will usually be a link in EEBO). That way, scholars can read the material in English, but in an English version that was also available to early modern playwrights, as a recent translation is simply a different text altogether.
While non-English texts are not an issue of tagging, the second and more significant challenge in this project is: playwrights use as source material other playwrights' plays. For example, Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside features a pair of lovers who fake their deaths in order to escape parents who are opposed to their marriage. Sound familiar? In Middleton's comedy, the lovers are actually reawakened at the correct time and are married to the great joy of their friends. Thus, while Romeo and Juliet is a product for Shakespeare, it is a source for Middleton--and this will happen over and over again in the works with which we are dealing. I must take care to create my database in such a way that makes clear the dual roles that any given text may play and that allows searches on both roles without confusion between them.
My first prediction of what such a database will show is an easy one: that Shakespeare will be wildly over-represented. His sources will seem to overshadow those of every other playwright, but this should be taken as exactly what it is--an artifact of his having enjoyed over four centuries of intense scholarly scrutiny. More complete study of the sources of Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, and others will eventually correct this artifact and bring Shakespeare's sources into a more proportionate relationship to theirs.
My intuitive sense is that the database will show that Shakespeare and Middleton are likely to have the most overlap with popular reading materials, with Jonson and the "university wits" having less overlap. However, I actually don't expect to find a great deal of overlap at all. Playwrights engage in a unique method of reading. They favor collections of stories, because they offer a multiplicity of plots to borrow, alter, and combine; and their reading is more utilitarian and goal-directed than the general public. Sermons, which were wildly popular early modern publications, are not likely to turn up frequently as playwrights' sources.
Although I do not expect to find a great deal of overlap with popular reading, I do expect to find a great deal of overlap between the playwrights; in fact, I expect the differences between them to be a matter of degree rather than kind. This, I think, underlines the ultimate goal of the project, which is to help scholars see playwrights as a group defined by their jobs and defined against the readers in their audiences. This is a relatively new way of seeing early modern playwrights, and I believe it opens scholarly possibilities in several directions.
There are two potential difficulties in creating this database--one small, and one more significant. The small issue is the amount of textual material that early modern playwrights read in a language other than English. Most of the group seem to have comfortably read Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, at a minimum. Tagging non-English texts as sources will be no different than tagging an English text: simply link the text to the author who used it. The trick is in making that text available for modern scholars to read. I plan to handle this by providing the text in its original language, since that is the source itself, but also providing a link to the earliest available translation of the text (probably, this will usually be a link in EEBO). That way, scholars can read the material in English, but in an English version that was also available to early modern playwrights, as a recent translation is simply a different text altogether.
While non-English texts are not an issue of tagging, the second and more significant challenge in this project is: playwrights use as source material other playwrights' plays. For example, Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside features a pair of lovers who fake their deaths in order to escape parents who are opposed to their marriage. Sound familiar? In Middleton's comedy, the lovers are actually reawakened at the correct time and are married to the great joy of their friends. Thus, while Romeo and Juliet is a product for Shakespeare, it is a source for Middleton--and this will happen over and over again in the works with which we are dealing. I must take care to create my database in such a way that makes clear the dual roles that any given text may play and that allows searches on both roles without confusion between them.