William Percy's Aphrodysial: An Old Spelling Edition

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Date
1990-11Author
Fenn, Robert (Robin) Denzel
Type
ThesisDegree Level
MastersMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Willam Percy (1573-1648) wrote f'ive of his six plays
between 1601 and 1603. The last play was written
in 1632, the year his nephew Algernon became the tenth Earl of
Northumberland. In Queen Elizabeth's last years, Percy's brother
Henry was working to guarantee the accession of James VI of
Scotland to the British throne. Percy's early dramas may very
well have bean performed in entertainments given by the Earl of
Northumberland in an attempt to gain political favour and
influence, and thereby to advance his political agenda. .The Aphrodysial, written in 1602, was part of this group and could have been used in this manner.
The Aphrodysial appears 1n two autoqraph manuscripts,
Alnwick Castle MS 509 (1646) and Huntington Library MS HM4
(1647), but not in an earlier version of the plays, Alnwick
Castle MS 508 ( 1644.). The present edition is an old spelling
edition and takes HM4 as its copy text· 509 has been used to
emend obvious mistakes in HM4, and a full list of substantive
variants has been. provided. The introduction to the work
contains a brief biography of Percy's life, a description of the
manuscripts and their history, a short critical note, and a
description of the editorial method used.