Headnotes:

Critical Headnote to Spenser's The Visions of Bellay

Textual Headnote to Spenser's The Visions of Bellay

Textual Headnote to Du Bellay’s Songe

Poems from Spenser's The Visions of Bellay:

2 "On high hills top I saw a stately frame"

8 "I saw a riuer swift, whose fomy billowes"

9 "Then all astoined with this mighty ghost"

10 "Hard by a riuers side a virgin faire"

Sonnets from Du Bellay’s Songe:

2 "Sur la croppe d’un mont je vis une Fabrique"

8 "Je vis un fier Torrent, dont les flots escumeux"

9 "Tout effroyé de ce monstre nocturne"

10 "Sur la rive d’un fleuve une Nymphe esploree"

Our copy text for the sonnets of The Visions of Bellay, and for the volume, Complaints, in which this sonnet sequence is included, is derived from corrected formes of the first edition of 1591. Press correction of the 1591 edition clusters heavily in inner formes B, M, R, and S, outer forme X, and, above all, in inner forme Y, from which the following sample texts are taken. Inner forme Y spans the conclusion of Visions of the Worlds Vanitie and the bulk of The Visions of Bellay. Eleven copies of 1591 have been collated for this edition. We also collated three copies – all invariant – of the first folio edition of Complaints included in the 1611 folio Works. (We will collate four more copies during the period of the grant.) The collation indicates that the Folio text was probably set from the second or third state of the forme in 1591.

Inner forme Y of the 1591 Complaints survives in three states, the first of which is represented by only a single witness from within the collated sample, British Library 239.i.1. Its defective character is indicated by the absence of a signature number at Y2 and several obvious errors (ariser at VB 7.14, a turned l in black at VB 8.4, and bur at VB 10.10). All of these errors are corrected in the next state, which is witnessed by nine of the copies in the sample. (The accompanying image is taken from the Washington University copy, which instances the second state of the forme.) Subtler adjustment at VB 9.1 and 9.3, where astonied is changed to the more eccentric astoined and lost is corrected to loast, suggests unusual care in the press correction at this juncture. An attempt is made to remedy the defect in signing, but the signature supplied, Y3, is inaccurate. The third state of the forme, represented only by Princeton Ex 3940.326.1591, finally witnesses the correct signature number at Y2, but evidences no further changes to the forme.

The sigla used in the collational notes below are

1591 Complaints. Containing sundrie small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie

1611 The Faerie Queen: The Shepheards Calendar: Together With The Other Works of England’s Arch- Poët, Edm. Spenser

Variant states are specifically identified in order to enable the reader to reconstruct the specific features of each state: thus “1591(1st)” indicates the first state of the forme and “1591 (2nd, 3rd)” indicates the second and third states of the forme. The Spenser Archive will provide facsimiles of all states as well as tools for efficiently identifying all variant features of a given state, forme by forme.

Because the Archive will also provide facsimiles of the 1611 Works, including the Visions of Bellay, we do not record all differences between 1591 and 1611. Substantive variation is recorded, but differences in typeface, case, spacing, and verse format are not. We record orthographic differences when the orthography of either edition may be construed as carrying double meanings not reflected in the other edition or as indicating the possibility of metrical adjustment. Differences in punctuation are recorded only when the pointing of the two editions is thought to promote sharply different constructions of a passage.