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HSDeath
- Indiana University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
HSDeath Textual Introduction As is shown on Figure 2 in the General Textual Introduction (p. lxii), HSDeath is the eleventh poem in both the earlier, Group...III sequence of "Diuine Meditations" and in NY3'S later replication of that sequence at the beginning of its collection of "Holy Sonnets." In the restructuring that gives rise to the subsequent Group...1/11 ar... rangement, however, the poem moves to the sixth position, following HSMin, and remains there in its first print appearance in A. In B, when the four discarded Group... III sonnets are recovered from H6 and reinstalled in the sequence, HSPart having been moved to the end of the group, HSDeath is relocated to tenth place and re... mains in that position in all subsequent editions except those of Alford (L), who reproduces the 1633 sequence; Lowell (M), who combines the Holy Sonnets with Corona in a continuously numbered series; Gardner (U), who prints the 1633 se... quence; and Shawcross (Z), who essentially follows Gardner (see Figure 6 on p. lxxvi). As is shown in the Historical Collation below and on Figure 4 in the General Textual Introduction (p. lxv), the text of HSDeath evinces a certain amount of sub... stantive change as it passes from the earlier, Group...III artifacts through Group IV (NY3) and on into the later Groups I and II. The Group...II "some hath [for the normative haue] called" (except H4 and WN I) in line I reflects a misunderstanding on the part of the ps scribe, and such readings as B32's "most [for more must] flowe" in line 6, C9'S "must more" (for "much more") in line 6, and B7'S "doe wth thee" (for "with thee do") in line 7 are the isolated blunders of individual copyists. Other variants show, however, that as he copied the Group...III text into the NY3 arrange... ment and subsequently imported the NY3 text into the reconfigured Group 1/11 sequence, Donne himself revised the text at each successive stage. Since we cannot be sure whether the parentheses enclosing "poor Death" in the Group...III rendition of line 4 are authorial or scribal (see note 4 on pp. lxvi-lxvii above), we cannot know whether their disappearance in NY3 represents Donne's change of mind (the line...s parentheses in C9 and H6 stem from a scribal sophistication in yl); but NY3'S substitution of "bones" for the earlier "bodyes" in line 8 is clearly Donne's. This revision carries over into the final Group...1/11 text, and two further authorial changes are introduced at the Group...I stage-the replacement of "easier" with "better" in line 12 and of "Liue" with "wake" in line 13. Set into type in A from the editor's usual Group...I manuscript (C2), this twice... revised text undergoes little further change among the seventeenth...century prints, and-with the exceptions noted below-all modern editors have printed this final version. A considerably strengthens the manuscript's punctuation-especially in lines 2, 3, and 4-but alters its verbals only in misreading "doth" (for the correct "dost") in line 10, an error that is immediately repaired in B. On no manuscript authority, 39 HSDeath Textual Introduction As is shown on Figure 2 in the General Textual Introduction (p. lxii), HSDeath is the eleventh poem in both the earlier, Group-III sequence of "Diuine Meditations" and in NY3'S later replication of that sequence at the beginning of its collection of "Holy Sonnets." In the restructuring that gives rise to the subsequent Group-I/II arrangement , however, the poem moves to the sixth position, following HSMin, and remains there in its first print appearance in A. In B, when the four discarded GroupIII sonnets are recovered from H6 and reinstalled in the sequence, HSPart having been moved to the end of the group, HSDeath is relocated to tenth place and remains in that position in all subsequent editions except those of Alford (L), who reproduces the 1633 sequence; Lowell (M), who combines the Holy Sonnets with Corona in a continuously numbered series; Gardner (U), who prints the 1633 sequence ; and Shawcross (Z), who essentially follows Gardner (see Figure 6 on p. lxxvi). As is shown in the Historical Collation below and on Figure 4 in the General Textual Introduction (p. lxv), the text of HSDeath evinces a certain amount of substantive change as it passes from the earlier, Group-III artifacts through Group IV (NY3) and on into...