Venus and Adonis-a Study in Warwickshire Dialect - pocketboek

The Shakespeare Society of New York, INCORPORATED APRIL 20, 1835, i ptnote tile fcnotole je of Q8bu IN EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, JUNE 15, 1885. Resolved That in order that the papers printed un der authority of this Society may be of the highest character, and of value from all standpoints, the Socie ty does not stand pledged as responsible for the opin ions expressed or conclusions arrived at in the said papers, but considers itself only responsible in so far as it certifies by its Imprimatur that it considers them as original contributions to Shakespearean study, and as showing upon their face care, labor and research. gaper of tSe J13 g, S atepeare g orietp, JRo. awl A STUDY IN WARWICKSHIRE DIALECT. BY APPLETON MORGAN. NEW YORK THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. BRENTANO BROS., New York, Washington and Chicago. 1885. PREFACTORY. So long as the capital question of a Shakespeare Canon remains open, a discussion of the secondary ques tion of the William Shakespeare authorship, whether considered as a whole as is the method of the Baconian Society, or as to particular works or parts of works, as conducted by Mr. Fleay in his admirable Shakespeare Manual and Mr. Rolfe in his invaluable Friendly Edi tion, would seem to be proper, I, for one, am willing to confess that after many years of famili arity with it, I regard the question as to what William Shakespeare wrote with his own pen, and what became his to use Mr. R. G. Whites language after the theatrical fashion and under the theatrical condi tions of his day, as legitimate as it is fascinating as one entitled to the fullest examination and treat ment on purely historical grounds and as one which can not only be pursued to any extentwithout casting suspicion on the querists loyalty or orthodoxy, but whose discussion is a contribution the more to the worlds noble and ever magnifying Library of Shakes peareana. Of course as to the results of these contributions, and the conclusions they compel, different minds will al ways be affected differently. For example While the statements made in the following pages do not prove anything, even prima facie, and, even, if conceded, are very far from demonstrating anything finally it is yet, it seems to me, worth while asking if they are, from any point of view, momentous enough to be entirely sup pressed and carefully forgotten. In his Memoranda on the Tragedy of Hamlet 1879 Mr. Halliwell Phillipps re marks Those who have lived as long as myself in the midst of Shakesperean criticism will be careful not to be too certain of anything. With such a cau tion from so eminent and venerable an authority, most younger men will wish to keep alertly on their guard against foreclosing themselves. VENUS AND ADONIS. PART I. THE POET. Everybody remembers the expressive dia lect spoken by Mrs. Poyser who is quite as real a personage as most of us, and who will live ages longer than any of us seeing that she is one of the Immortals of George Eliots immortal gallery. George Eliot lays the story, of which Mrs. Poyser is the undoubted masterpiece, in Loamshire, by which, of course, everybody recognizes Leicestershire. But it must not be inferred, says Dr. Se bastian Evans of the English Dialect Society, that Mrs. Poyser and the rest of the charac- ters introduced in Adam Bede speak pure Leicestershire. They speak pure Warwick- shire and, although the two dialects natu- rally approximate veryclosely, they are far from being identical in pronunciation, gram- mar or vocabulary. The truth is that George Eliot was herself Warwickshire born, and used the dialect, in the midst of which she had been reared, for her Leicestershire characters which was not much of a solecism seeing that the two had so many points of contact. IJSNC S AND ADOMS...