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  • Robert Greene's Planetomachia (1585)
  • Brett Hirsch
Das, Nandini , ed., Robert Greene's Planetomachia (1585) (Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity), Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007; hardback; pp. lvi, 168; 5 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £50.00; ISBN 9780754656616.

Published in London in 1585, the title page of Robert Greene's Planetomachia promised its prospective readers a healthy dose of entertainment and education, combining an astronomical discourse of the 'essence, nature, and influence' of the planets with 'pleasaunt and Tragicall histories'. In this present volume, the latest in Ashgate's new 'Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity' series, Nandini Das has sought to produce the first complete critical edition of Greene's Planetomachia.

Prior to Das' edition, Greene's Planetomachia was available in only two other modern editions, both with their share of errors and limitations. The need for a complete, modern, critical edition of the text is clearly warranted, and Das is to be applauded for undertaking such a task. Das' Textual Introduction begins with a comprehensive discussion of the printing of Greene's Planetomachia, followed by a collation of the six extant copies of the text, including the Houghton Library copy neglected by both previous editors. On its own, Das' bibliographical analysis is an important contribution to Greene studies. Finding in Bodleian Tanner 253(2) 'the only complete copy to present the various segments of the text in the correct order' (p. xlvii), Das is justified in selecting it as the copy-text for the present volume.

Beginning with a Critical Introduction, the edition includes the text of Greene's Planetomachia along with commentary and a list of emendations (among other editorial apparatus), finishing with a section for Sources and Translations, and a selected bibliography. The Critical Introduction is split into four sections: Personal Contexts, Scientific Contexts, Literary Contexts, and a Textual Introduction. Appended after the edition and the list of emendations, Das includes a number of lists and tables, the purpose of which is not always clear. Of more obvious utility, especially for those with 'small Latine and lesse Greeke', is the Sources and Translations section that follows (pp. 139-59). Here Das includes translations of the Latin portions of Greene's text and extracts from his sources in the original and in translation. Finally, the volume ends with a Select Bibliography, with primary sources cited erratically with or without their place of publication, and others with incorrect titles.

As laudable as these bibliographical efforts may be, other editorial procedures adopted by Das are puzzling. A modernised text might have proven more useful, but Das does not justify her decision to produce an original-spelling edition. Instead, [End Page 139] the edition of the English text 'preserves the spelling found in the Bodleian Tanner copy' but with many exceptions. Further, 'in cases where the reader may be puzzled by ambiguous or irregular period spelling' (p. xlix), the edition gives the modernised form in brackets, noting the original in the list of emendations.

Just as perplexing is Das' treatment of Greene's citations from Latin and Greek authors, and the substantial Latin sections of Planetomachia itself. While the English text was selectively regularised, expanded, and emended, the opposite approach is adopted with the Latin text. Das' decision to leave untouched and uncorrected Greene's citations from Latin and Greek authors is similarly inexplicable.

The system of line numbers used throughout the edition is puzzling, and at first appears to have no utility at all. While there is no mention or explanation of the line numbers in the editorial apparatus, an astute reader will inevitably discover the purposes of the numbers appearing in increments of five in the margin of every page: to assist in locating items from the ten-page list of emendations (the majority of which are simply expanded words originally printed with a tilde, or one of the 88 substitutions of 'than' for 'then'). Surely it might have made more sense to implement a more conventional system of line numbering, tied to the structure of the text itself? Thankfully, Das includes the signature references in square brackets within the body of the text itself, so it is possible to cite from the...

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