- The previous video provided information
about the Variorum Reader's play text and commentary notes.
This video focuses on textual notes
in the Variorum reader's search function.
Textual notes are visualized in the Variorum reader
as a histogram in the left panel
and record all of the variants across additions
and chronological order when compared against the copy text,
line by line, word by word, character by character,
and point by point.
This is a list of all of the additions in The Winter's Tale
that have been compared closely with a copy text,
which for The Winter's Tale
is Shakespeare's 1623 first folio.
As you can see, there are many additions
that have been collated against this first folio
going all the way down to Bebbington's 1988 edition.
The histogram showcases different textual variants
in a color coded sidebar that can be expanded
by clicking on these disclosure triangles.
In an expanded note, clicking on signal markers
brings up a pop-up model that lists all of the additions
that include the variant in question.
Let's look at how to read textual notes
using a fairly simple one in line 84.
The textual note here records the fact that in line 84,
which reads, I had thought sir to have held my peace until.
in Pope's edition of 1725,
following through Lewis Theobald edition of 1740.
To have, in the copy text or the first folio,
all of those editions actually read to've.
All of the editions following Theobald
until Warburton's 1747 edition
revert back to the first folio reading of to have.
Warburton's 1747 edition following
through Samuel Johnson 1765 edition
include the variant reading of to've.
All editions after Johnson 1765 edition restore
the first folio reading of to have.
So to sum up, all of the editions
in the histogram are in chronological order,
starting with a plays copy text in The Winter's Tale
at Shakespeare's 1623 first folio edition.
And in Midsummer Night's Dream,
it's Shakespeare's 1601st quarter edition.
The additions that contain variants are highlighted
in different shades of orange as you see here, and here.
The grayed out editions do not contain the variant words
or spellings and agree with the copy text.
So let's look at line 915
to see a slightly more complicated textual note.
This note records the fact that in line 915
where the copy text or first folio reads
he straight declined drooped and took it deeply.
Thomas Hammer's editions of 1743
and 1745 include an and before drooped.
And the E is dropped, and took and most
is added before deeply.
Capell's edition of 1768 includes upon it
between declined and drooped and drops the E in took.
Kiley's 1864 edition adds an and after deeply,
and the 1947 Penguin edition eliminates drooped
after declined, and drops the E after took.
I should note here that the Penguin edition
belongs to a second category of editions examined
by the editors for this volume.
The first category includes editions
that are fully collated,
that is editions of such primary importance
and the history of the transmission
of the text that they have been compared
with the copy text line by line,
word by word, letter by letter, and point by point.
In the second category
are editions that are selectively or occasionally quoted
in the textual notes.
These editions are of secondary importance.
Readings from them are recorded only occasionally
in the notes when they're of special interest.
Each variorum editor must decide
which editions deserve full correlation,
and which should only be occasionally or selectively quoted.
Whenever a selectively
or occasionally quoted edition appears in a textual note,
the histogram will include a color bar
in the selectively quoted column.
And you can see that right here.
So this is the very narrow selectively quoted column,
and here's that color bar I'm talking about.
And when you expand the note,
the color bar in this column appears
in a line where the variant
for that selectively quoted edition appears.
An example of a textual note that only includes
a variant from a selectively quoted edition
can be seen in line 864.
So let's go there now.
Here, the line in the copy text reads,
"I'll show at the king and undertake to be".
In the Penguin edition the O replaces the E and show...
The Penguin edition also eliminates
the contraction by spelling out, show it,
and adds a to, before the king.
So, now that we've learned a little about textual notes,
let's turn our attention
to the Variorum Reader's search function.
The reader is afforded the opportunity
to search the play textual note variants
and commentary using four modes of searching.
You can search by through line number,
so I'm gonna type in the number one,
so that we can go to through line number one
or by keyword by going to this field
and typing in a keyword.
The default fuzzy search makes use
of early modern English synonyms.
So the user can use modern spellings for words,
and still find their equivalents
is spelled using earlier conventions.
For example, sleepy drinks,
I'm gonna go ahead and use the modern English spelling
for sleepy drinks and see what that pulls
up using the fuzzy search.
So in the play text, textual notes, and commentary notes,
it pulls up everything
that sort of approximates sleepy or drinks.
So we have steeped, we have drink with an E.
This is really neat because we're seeing some
of the early modern spellings for sleepy,
using an IE instead of a Y
because we're using the fuzzy search and drinks,
D R I N K E S instead of K S.
in the commentary notes, let's see what that pulls up.
Well, we have modern English spellings here.
Using the exact search...
Well, it's pretty self explanatory.
It only matches on exact spellings of search terms,
but the wildcard search is quite interesting
because it allows you to make use of the asterisk
to look for results based on partial matches.
So let's put in search for K I N, asterisk,
and see what that pulls up.
It should pull up all instances of words
in the play text textual notes and commentary notes
that begin with a K I N.
And yes, it does return a lot of results.
So we get words like, king, kings...
In the commentary notes, kind, kindness...
I'm not gonna go through all 97 instances
in the play text or 337 instances in the commentary notes,
but it pulls up all of the words that start with K I N.
So a lot of results there.
To limit your search, you can uncheck any
of the boxes next to play text variants or commentary.
So let's try that same wild card search
with the same K I N, asterisk, and see if that works.
And it does, it pulls up all 97 instances of that,
of those words found in the play text,
but it excludes words in the textual notes
and commentary notes.
So you can play around with that a little bit.
This concludes our instructional video series.
Please also visit our FAQs and Lexicon page
to find answers to commonly asked questions
and to also see frequently used NBS terms and definitions.
If you have any additional questions or comments
or if you would like to provide us feedback,
which we would greatly appreciate,
please feel free to contact us at the feedback link
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We look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.