This post was co-authored by Sean Oblak and Jessica Joudy, SCEMBI student scholars<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
At the moment, we\u2019re editing the text of John Fletcher and Philip Massinger\u2019s The Elder Brother<\/em><\/a>, a seventeenth-century play showcasing romance, marriage, infidelity, family feuds, and brotherly rivalries. Our goal is to create a modernized textual edition suitable for college-level readers. To do this, we compare early editions of the text (a process called “collation”), research and account for archaic language, and explain in our notes phrases and metaphors that we don\u2019t hear or see anymore today. Essentially, we\u2019re trying to make this play more accessible to modern audiences who may only be familiar with Fletcher and Massinger\u2019s now more-famous theater colleague, William Shakespeare. But our work isn\u2019t a simple matter of changing every \u201cfaire\u201d into \u201cfair\u201d; trying to modernize and preserve a text at the same time is quite complicated, and it’s this aspect of the project that makes our work so interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we offer a picture of the project, we must recognize that this would not have been possible without the work of the Professor Andrew Keener\u2019s Winter 2020 Textual Editing class, who began modernizing Fletcher and Massinger\u2019s play long before we got involved. More than anyone else, this is their project, and we at SCEMBI are grateful to continue their work before it goes out into the world. Many thanks to Kaliray Arison, Sarah Parent, Charlotte Seton, and Nick Witkin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n Portrait of John Fletcher, ca. 1620<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Portrait of Philip Massinger, ca. 1750<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n This kind of editorial work immediately creates some interesting puzzles. Editors have options when working with their selected texts and it is really up to us to determine what choices to make. To help us along the way, our guiding principle is to create balance between accessibility and fidelity to the original text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what does this approach look like in action? To start, we had to figure out what language to keep, what language to change, and what needs to be explained through textual notes. We decided to keep words like \u201cthou,\u201d \u201ctis,\u201d and \u201cblest\u201d because we felt that examples such as these do not impede the reading experience even if the spelling or words themselves are not used today. On the other hand, we\u2019ve made a few minor changes to some words with archaic spellings if they represent words that are still commonly used. Sometimes, all it takes is the removal of the final \u201ce\u201d in words like \u201cfaire\u201d or \u201cmistresse.\u201d Other times, we change spelling to clear up the confusion between words like \u201ctravel\u201d and \u201ctravail,\u201d words that once could have shared the same spelling despite meaning completely different things (\u201ctravel\u201d accommodates today\u2019s meanings, while \u201ctravail\u201d gestures towards connotations of labor). Finally, when we want to keep a word or phrase that we know may be off-putting to modern audiences, we add some notes to help guide the reader much in the same way as annotations in modern editions of Shakespeare\u2019s plays. I mean, we didn\u2019t know what a \u201ckickshaw\u201d or a \u201ccoxcomb\u201d was when reading this play for the first time, but now we\u2019re happy to tell you! (For the record, a trinket or toy \u2013 after the French quelquechose <\/em>\u2013 and a fool, respectively.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, you could ask, \u201cWhy not just modernize every word of the play? Isn\u2019t it arbitrary to just pick and choose which words to change and which ones to leave alone?\u201d While the process itself may be meticulous, we feel that it is necessary to preserve as much original language as possible because it maintains the essence of the authors\u2019 work. For example, after encountering the word \u201cservulating\u201d in the text, a quick search in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) told us that \u201cservulate\u201d essentially means \u201cto be servile.\u201d However, that was not the only detail we found: this play contains the only instance of this word recorded in the OED. This word is extremely rare! As such, we felt that it\u2019s emblematic of Fletcher and Massinger\u2019s authorial style, so we made a little annotation and left the word as it was (even if other versions of the text simply feature \u201cservice\u201d). To compare this case, let\u2019s take a look at one of the most recognizable lines from Shakespeare, \u201cwherefore art thou Romeo?\u201d In today\u2019s English, the first three words in this phrase would never be used in the same way. But, would changing this to \u201cwhy are you Romeo?\u201d be the best choice? We would feel that such a change would diminish the style of Shakespeare\u2019s work, and so we try to apply the same idea to The Elder Brother<\/em>. Sometimes a more difficult word or phrase yields a stronger reading \u2013 in fact, this is a principle used by many editors: the harder meaning is the more plausible one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One important goal of our work is to bring attention to John Fletcher and Philip Massinger to a wider audience. Fletcher and Massinger were well-known in the seventeenth century, although they have fallen into general obscurity since. Fletcher was well-known for his wit, and became the lead playwright for the King\u2019s Men acting company after Shakespeare\u2019s death. In fact, he became known as Shakespeare\u2019s successor, and rivaled him in popularity during his life and especially during the Restoration (that\u2019s the 1660s). Many of his plays were beloved on stage, including The Woman\u2019s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed<\/em>, his sequel to Shakespeare\u2019s The Taming of the Shrew<\/em>. According to the Master of the Revels at the time, The Taming of the Shrew<\/em> was \u201cliked,\u201d but The Woman\u2019s Prize <\/em>was \u201cvery well-liked.”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Elder Brother<\/em> was not Fletcher\u2019s most famous play, but it was still admired. As the last play he ever wrote, it became a testament to his fame after his death. Throughout the seventeenth century, there was high demand for the play in print, which resulted in five quarto editions, and another text of the drama appeared in the second Beaumont and Fletcher Folio of 1679. (For comparison, Romeo and Juliet<\/em> received the same number of quarto editions.) On the Restoration-era stage, The Elder Brother<\/em> was evidently well received, and played often, becoming a staple of British theater. It was not the only beloved Fletcher drama: scholars at the University of Delaware have found that Beaumont and Fletcher plays were performed about twice as often as Ben Johnson or Shakespeare\u2019s plays during this time!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Massinger was not as popular in his time as Fletcher, he contributed heavily to many of Fletcher\u2019s works, and wrote a variety of other plays. His most popular solo play, A New Way to Pay Old Debts<\/em>, was loved well into the 19th century, and its central character, Sir Giles Over-reach, was regarded as one of the most interesting villains of the era. Both Fletcher and Massinger created masterpieces of the stage, many of which have become eclipsed by other, more well-known works, especially those by Shakespeare and Jonson. As Massinger\u2019s prologue of The Elder Brother<\/em> makes it clear, the finished play was a tribute to Fletcher\u2019s work after his death; he hoped that it would, \u201cto after-times, preserve his name.\u201d In creating this modern edition, our aim is to fulfill this hope and spotlight the work of Fletcher, as well as his contributing collaborator Massinger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, in the end, it\u2019s not just up to the editors to determine what\u2019s right for these texts today. As always, we look to our audience, and we hope that it can grow as a result of our work. We invite you all to read (or enact) our free, accessible edition of The Elder Brother once it is complete. And, if you\u2019d like to get an even closer look at this play\u2019s textual history, check out SCU\u2019s second quarto edition of the play<\/a> once Archives & Special Collections reopens, or view the digitized copy online<\/a> anytime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nHeader image: title page of <\/em>The Elder Brother from the SCU Digital Collections<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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