6 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2009
Summary
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
Henry David Thoreau, Journal 11 November 1854–Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
–To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
–The dog did nothing in the night-time.
–That was the curious incident.
A. Conan Doyle, The Silver BlazeIt should be apparent from the previous chapters that much New Bibliographic analysis of suspect texts is confirmatory rather than diagnostic. The features of suspect texts (texts suspected of being reconstructed from memory) are measured against a priori expectations of the features a memorially reconstructed text should exhibit. When the features of the material suspect text agree with those of the hypothetical model of memorial reconstruction, this congruence is taken to ‘prove’ memorial reconstruction. Small wonder that so many texts have been designated memorial reconstructions.
In articles and introductions to editions, New Bibliographers regularly list the features allegedly typical of, and confined to, suspect texts. The following comments on Q King Lear are representative:
Q seems to contain some ‘connective’ phrases by actors, and many of its misreadings might well be due either to actors' blunders or to mishearing… [M]islineation is a constant feature in Q… Occasionally it is altogether unmetrical. Prose is printed as verse. Still more often is verse printed as prose… I think that the characteristics of Q point to a reported text.
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- Shakespearean Suspect TextsThe 'Bad' Quartos and their Contexts, pp. 151 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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