George Campbell Macaulay and the Clarendon Edition of Gower.
- Author/Editor
- Edwards, A. S. G.
- Title
- George Campbell Macaulay and the Clarendon Edition of Gower.
- Published
- Edwards, A. S. G. "George Campbell Macaulay and the Clarendon Edition of Gower." In Martha Driver, Derek Pearsall, and R. F. Yeager, eds. John Gower in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books. Publications of the John Gower Society, no. 14. Rochester, NY: Brewer, 2020. Pp. 247-61.
- Review
- Gowerians need no introduction to G. C, Macaulay's four-volume edition of Gower's works, but most know little about the man who produced it. Edwards remedies this to the extent possible by combining an account of Macaulay's academic and scholarly life with appreciative commentary on the "character and intellect" that his edition reveals and the "motive and method" (248) that underlie it, particularly the two volumes dedicated to the "Confessio Amantis." Edwards expresses justified chagrin that, despite the wide range and importance of Macaulay's accomplishments (detailed by Edwards), his death was "marked by a single obituary" and he "does not appear in either the "Dictionary of National Biography" or the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" (247). Extensive sleuthing enables Edwards to compile a brisk narrative of Macaulay's family, education, teaching, and scholarly activities, all of it punctuated by noteworthy, sometimes surprising, information. Turning to Macaulay's Gower edition, Edwards makes clear that, although Macaulay discovered the unique manuscript of "Mirour de l'Omme," it was editing the CA that was his driving interest. Edwards focuses on the nature and significant challenges of editing the work, commending Macaulay's location and descriptions of manuscripts of CA--his "remarkable feat of enumerative bibliography"--and the importance of his understanding "that a description of a manuscript in an edition serves a different purpose from a catalogue description" (254). Although Macaulay uses the term "recensions" (Edwards clarifies as "broad textual groupings," 255) in categorizing the forty-two CA manuscripts that he identified, some of his remarks seem to presage, Edwards suggests, more recent arguments about the "limitations of recension as an editorial method" (258). Even though his collations are not exhaustive, Macaulay was an accurate transcriber; he was a "conservative editor," but his edition "is not a critical edition as the term is now generally understood" (259). Edwards identifies and helpfully corrects misunderstandings by scholars of Macaulay's claims, while clarifying that the "textual authority" of the edition "has remained largely unchallenged" (260). This section of the essay is uncharacteristically bumpy, perhaps due to a light editorial hand or hasty revision. For example, footnotes 37 and 43 are confused (in reversed ibid order), and Peter Nicholson is referred to five times in three pages (257-59) by first name and surname as if previously unmentioned--reprimanded for misrepresenting Macaulay and then praised as the "most astute of Gower's textual critics" (257) and "one of the most searching of Macaulay's critics" (259). Edwards closes on an upbeat, identifying two positive reviews from 1901 and 1902 of Macaulay's edition, "previously unremarked by Gower scholarship" (260), both by the poet and literary critic Edward Thomas. [MA. Copyright. The John Gower Society. eJGN 39.2]
- Date
- 2020
- Gower Subjects
- Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Confessio Amantis
Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Meditantis)