For the past two weeks I’ve been on something of a Shakespeare kick. While I won’t go into my personal feelings on his work, he does represent a significant portion of the quotes used as examples in the Samuel Johnson Dictionary and is therefore an inevitably hefty chunk of the No-Match quotations! You might think “It’s Shakespeare, how hard is it to match?” But trust – it can be surprisingly difficult. I’ve previously talked about Johnson’s proclivity for altering quotes, but in addition to that little hiccup, he also sometimes pairs the quote with the wrong play; for example, a quote from Henry VI will say it’s from Henry VIII. This might seem like a small detail, but details are very important in history; plus, I don’t think Henry VI would appreciate getting mixed up with Henry VIII (honestly, who would?).
It is with that background information that I introduce our main Shakespearian source: the Folger Shakespeare Library! This repository helps us get down to the nitty gritty details, ensuring the information relayed in the online dictionary is correct. They have all of Shakespeare’s works available digitally (for free!), provide analysis of his works, and host a whole load of information related to teaching and learning about him. Honestly, their site is also really nice - kind of amazing for a historically based subject as we’re not exactly known for our graphic design skills!
Returning to the Samuel Johnson Dictionary Project and finishing my apparent plug of the Folger Shakespeare Library (obviously not sponsored), currently we’re sitting at 1,709 Shakespeare quotes on our No-Match spreadsheet. It might seem like a lot, and it’s definitely not a small percentage considering the entire sheet is 10,083 rows and includes a whole lot of other authors! For my part though, I’ve been able to knock out 1,016 of them! And by “knock out,” I mean match, of course. I’m not (always) fighting with them. I’m hoping that with the rest of my hours this week I can get all the Shakespeare off that spreadsheet and happily paired with their respective plays.
However, there is a lurking issue with doing that: the would-be Shakespeare ‘fixers’ who felt the need to drastically change or amalgamate Shakespeare with other authors. I’m running into this currently on some quotes that say they’re from Love’s Labour’s Lost but also seem to be from an author named Manwood who wrote about nature and forestry. Obviously, super similar. The problem is I can’t find the quote in either of these sources! After consulting with my infamous supervisor, it seems as though a man named Warburton decided to play around with Shakespeare (and, by extension here, Manwood), heavily editing it in his own eight-volume collection of the works and searching through that behemoth may solve my problem. Granted, it creates a whole mountain out of a mole hill, but now Warburton can have a mountain named after him. So that’s nice.
Is it possible to have a nemesis that lives in a different century? Asking for a friend.