Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2002 The minor" " author and the major editor: a case study in determining the canon Christopher Andrew Healy Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Healy, Christopher Andrew, "The minor" " author and the major editor: a case study in determining the canon" (2002). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3004. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3004 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE “MINOR” AUTHOR AND THE MAJOR EDITOR: A CASE STUDY IN DETERMINING THE CANON A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Christopher Andrew Healy B.A., University of New Orleans, 1987 December 2002 Acknowledgments No words seem adequate or fitting to convey my feelings of indebtedness to the so many people who have made my work possible. Still, I hope my attempt can at the very least suggest my gratitude. First, I must thank my initial mentor, the late George F. Reinecke. Very early in my graduate studies, his classes on Chaucer and on Textual Scholarship made me decide to become a medievalist. When I was looking for a research topic, he gave me a book to read, Jerome Mitchell’s Thomas Hoccleve: A Study in Early Fifteenth- Century Poetic. That book captured my interest, a captivation that eventually evolved into this dissertation. I regret that George did not live long enough to see his original nudge come to fruition as the following study. I must also thank Miriam Youngerman Miller and Robert Sturges, both of whom offered me their tutelage while I was at the University of New Orleans. Although they good- naturedly baited me about Hoccleve, each was always available to answer my questions. And both of them, along with George Reinecke, made me realize how much I had to learn. ii My most sincere appreciation must go to my dissertation director, Malcolm Richardson. I honestly feel that I could not have had a better advisor. Malcolm allowed me at times to start down paths that he knew would not ultimately lead to my final destination, but by permitting me to redirect myself--something I did not always do with enough alacrity--Malcolm afforded me the ability to learn more than if he had constantly steered me. Furthermore, I am always impressed that when I excitedly approach him with some obscure fact I have recently stumbled across, he already knows it. My gratitude to him also stems from a recognition that I would not have finished my work if he had not been my advisor. My committee–Jim Springer Borck, Carl Freedman, and Susannah Monta--also deserves my thanks. Their patience and their steadfastness have been a great boon. And the varied knowledge of each member has enriched not only my dissertation, but my overall studies in general. Throughout the dissertation are bits and pieces I learned from their instruction, and the dissertation as a whole was shaped by their suggestions. My friends Kit Kincade and Warren Miller have always been my cheering section. When I was ready to give up-- for various reasons several times throughout the process-- iii these two people would not allow me to surrender to that fatalism. Calling them friends is not enough, but there is no word to fully encompass what they mean to me. I could also never ask for a better family than the one with which I have been graced. They have supported me: emotionally when my spirit failed, physically as my body continues to fail, and financially when scholarship has economically failed me. Particularly, my parents, Gerald D. Healy, Jr. and Elizabeth Casso Healy, have seen me through everything--more than my education only, but in my entire life, no matter how unorthodox they may have found my decisions. I cannot fail to remember, either, the phenomenal closeness of my siblings, Kathy, Nancy, and Denny; their spouses; and their children. And then there is my grandmother, Eleanora Casso, one of the strongest people I have ever known, my second mother. Finally, I give thanks to Monica Busby, the woman who has put joy back into my life, the very love of my life. She believes in me when I do not believe in myself. She is unwavering in her love, care, and concern. The positive feelings she has for me mean all the more to me because of how much I respect her, how much I believe in her, and how much I am impressed by her. And I further thank her for reading every word of this dissertation, which she did as a kindness, not an obligation. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments.........................................ii Abstract................................................vi Chapter 1 Introduction...................................1 2 Furnivall’s Forerunners.......................18 3 The Gatekeeper Positioned: Furnivall as Editor and Reader................75 4 Manuscripts and Editorial Product: Furnivall’s EETS Editions....................119 5 Unlocking the Gate...........................168 6 Conclusion...................................229 References.............................................234 Vita...................................................244 v Abstract This dissertation explores the relationship between a literary work and its printed edition in the production of reputation--the editor as gatekeeper of the reputation of a “minor” poet. That relationship is demonstrated through a case study on the effects of the nineteenth-century edition of the works of the fifteenth-century poet Thomas Hoccleve and an analysis of the lingering effects of the Foucauldian “editor-function.” The number of surviving manuscripts indicates that Hoccleve’s work was well-regarded during the early fifteenth century, but his reputation fell with that of other non-Chaucerian medieval poets as later critics lost linguistic familiarity with Middle English. The Victorian-era work of the Early English Text Society was intended to reclaim the positive reception for medieval works; however, the EETS offerings achieved just the opposite result for Hoccleve’s poetry and perpetuated the negative reputation the poet had acquired. Frederick J. Furnivall’s EETS “standard” Hoccleve editions, still in print, are largely unfavorable in the crucial prefatory matter, even though it is rife with transparent Victorian prejudices. Furnivall’s text itself is haphazardly irregular, frequently producing--not vi reproducing--the same flaws the forewords criticize. As these blemished editions have remained the standard for over a century, Furnivall’s editorial irresponsibility undoubtedly slowed the critical re-evaluation of Hoccleve, which began at the end of the twentieth century. vii Chapter 1 Introduction Understanding why many of the writers who have achieved a high level of fame did so is usually not very difficult. The talents of writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare, for instance, were such that their contemporaries immediately recognized the importance of what these exceptional talents had produced, and these disciples praised and revered the great writers at once. We continue to find new facets in the works of such writers, elements on which we can comment, or we reinterpret their works into a modern setting.1 The reasons behind the amount of study on some other writers may be less obvious, for in cases like that of John Skelton, we must justify the author’s position in the canon, arguing for contemporary positive reception, influence, or some other special circumstance. In any event, the writer’s skills seem to be our first concern, with secondary reasons coloring our attitudes. But why a once well-received writer is not part of the accepted 1 The 1992 movie My Own Private Idaho, for example, is an oddly modernized version of 1 Henry IV, in which the basic plot is used in a modern setting, as Westside Story uses Romeo and Juliet, but in which much of the language is archaic and pseudo-Shakespearean, and in which un- Shakespearean elements, like a narcoleptic, are added. 1 2 canon is, however, not as easy a question to answer as it may at first seem. Certainly, the change in literary tastes from the time of composition to today must play some role in an author’s loss of readership, for as Richard Firth Green notes, works which may strike the modern reader as dull (Chaucer’s Melibee, for instance, or Hoccleve’s Regement), or, conversely, qualities which to us may seem novel and significant, may have appeared very different to their original audiences.2 What is trite today was not always so, and we all can recognize that fact. But Green’s idea that what to us is original may not have seemed so to its initial audience may strike us as provocative. Essentially, literary elements are fluid. If invention is periodic, so then must be reception. Many literary figures are more important during the time of their literary production than they are when one considers the larger body of all English literature. For example, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were, obviously, contemporaries, but their relative reception has not been static; in fact, at different times each of the two has enjoyed a somewhat “favored status” as 2 Richard Firth Green, Poets and Princepleasers: Literature and the English Court in the Late Middle Ages (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1980) 11. 3 poet, depending upon current interests and ideals of literary aims. Each writes a very different type of poetry, even if the prosody of each is skillful.