Nota Bene by Gearalt MacAodha
A new edition of the works of John Keats gives one critic pause for thought about the role of the annotator.
There is furore in the realms of academe over a recently republished edition of Keats: the annotated poems. Scholars have taken issue with the idiosyncratic nature of editor B.B. Henbatter’s annotations, claiming that they are highly subjective and add little to our appreciation of the poems.
Anyone familiar with Henbatter’s seminal work, Oh, what can ail thee…? a medical critique of Romantic Poetry, published in 1969, will be aware that he is a man with a mission. In his own words from the preface to that volume, he intends: ‘to address the multifarious medical inaccuracies in Keats' poems, by researching the damage his work has done thus far and seeking first or second hand accounts from persons who have suffered injury or illness as a result of his irresponsible suggestions’. This fixation can clearly be seen in footnote 4, reproduced below.
Ode to Melancholy
Go not to Lethe1, neither sip
Wolfsbane2, tight rooted, for its hemlock3 drops.
……………………………………
……………………………………….
………………………………………
………………………………………..
………………………………………….
And when the melancholy fit4 shall fall
His particular form of pedantry was at odds with the spirit of the 60s and the companion volumes, Every which way but Hell: the geography of the inferno, in which he highlighted inconsistencies between Dante’s and Milton’s descriptions of Hell, and Slimy Things: a literary history of pest control from John Donne to William Burroughs, found little favour with publishers. But a half-century later, the octogenarian critic may be at one with the zeitgeist. In these litigious days, publishers and educators may find that they would do well to heed Henblatter’s admonitions. His approach may well come to be seen as a template for responsible editors in the noughties.
1 Lethe: an unattractive village on the outskirts of Barnsley. Best avoided.
2 Wolfsbane: either a particularly vile but potent real ale found at beer festivals or a long forgotten member of the BBC’s Gladiators.
3 Hemlock: as above: but may also be a reference to a mediaeval device clamped to a virgin’s nightdress with a similar purpose to the more cumbersome chastity belt.
4 Now more correctly expressed as an ‘episode of bi-polar disorder’. Here Keats is at odds with current medical practice, having used the politically incorrect term ‘fit’ instead of the preferred and less potentially offensive ‘seizure’. He then goes on to recommend a course of action that psychiatric practitioners would now find self-indulgent and counter-productive. As a result, this writer wishes to distance himself from any of the medical advice given in this, or others of Keats’ Odes and suggests that his publishers should attach a disclaimer to cover any untoward outcomes experienced by the end user of any guidance, intentional or otherwise, which may be inferred from the text within.
