Reading the Material Text of Swift's Verses on the Death

Most modern readers of Jonathan Swift's greatest poem encounter a text that eighteenth-century readers would never have known. When we read a modern edition of Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, we generally find a single version, entirely printed, containing no lacunae, and with footnotes either reduced in size or relegated to the back of the book. The visual and material qualities of eighteenth-century texts often differ from modern ones, but in the case of the Verses those differences are not only in degree but in kind. In the eighteenth century there were two dramatically conflicting versions of the poem, the more authoritative of which contained footnotes printed as large as the poem's lines, as well as numerous gaps sometimes filled in by hand. Thus, the early texts of this poem survive in a bewildering array of print, manuscript, and blank space. ¹

Having gathered evidence from over twenty eighteenth-century editions of the Verses and thirty-two annotated copies, I want to use this research to redirect the study of the poem. ² By drawing on the often disparate fields of literary criticism, textual criticism, and the history of the book, I point to a climate in which textual variability was sometimes accepted and in which some readers actively shared and compared manuscripts and printed texts. In this context, my title "Reading the Material Text" has four different meanings. First, I read these documents to understand the poem's complex textual transmission, the traditional purview of textual editors. Second, I argue that Swift is primarily responsible for the unusual appearance of George Faulkner's early editions, and therefore the material text of these editions forms an integral part of Swift's intentions. Third, influenced by recent developments in textual criticism, I suggest that criticism of the poem should involve reading its material text. Fourth, I show how the annotated copies help us understand the various ways in which eighteenth-century readers responded to the work. ³

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Tracing the textual transmission of Swift's Verses is especially difficult because it involves not only manuscript and printed evidence, but also their intricate interaction. Significant portions of the poem's notes exist only as manuscript additions copied onto printed texts. These documents pose a number of challenging problems, such as determining who copied the manuscript material, when, and from what source. The problems are even more vexing in that no authorial manuscript survives and that, as far as we know, Swift remained silent on these textual issues. Thus, we lack a complete base text from which to compare the other versions, and in addition, no two of the thirty-two known annotated copies are exactly alike. The singular, standardized text of modern editions masks a variability that was historically integral to the work's existence and that may have been authorially intended or at least sanctioned.

Careful inspection of these documents and other kinds of evidence provides a probable sketch of this particular work's circulation, which passed through all the possible media of transmission. Though Swift apparently composed the poem proper toward the end of 1731 and the notes later that spring, he chose not to commit the work to print for at least four years. After a period of oral circulation, amusingly recounted by Laetitia Pilkington, Swift had the Jacobite poet William King arrange print publication in London. Before doing so, however, King shared the manuscript with a select circle of Swift's friends, including at least Alexander Pope and John Boyle, earl of Orrery. Drastically edited and stripped of its notes by this group, the Verses was first published by Charles Bathurst in London in January 1739. Soon thereafter, George Faulkner, Swift's trusted Dublin bookseller, published a much longer version, containing the notes and many blank spaces that signified missing material. This material was then written...