Collaboration and Openness in Professor Martha Nell Smith’s Talk on Editing

In the master’s class at Wayne State University, Professor Martha Nell Smith gave us personal insight on her experiences as an editor. I was mostly intrigued by two concepts Professor Smith discussed, that I see as key  terms in regards to where the humanities is headed: collaboration and openness.  

Professor Smith highlights the importance of collaboration in the editing process, including digital work. In producing digital archives, Professor Smith found herself working with other scholars; she noted how much she enjoyed doing so and even made sure to point out that most of her books are co-authored. Her likeness for collaboration possibly stems from her belief that the tools that scholars produce are not more important than the people who produce them. Respecting the hard labor and good work of editors is a good thing, and worshipping the tools they create is not. She takes a very humane approach to the editing process, making it known that as people get their hands “dirty” in messy archives, even the most principled editors will make mistakes. Professor Smith recalls a time when her own graduate student caught a mistake in one of her works. A second “pair of eyes” is fundamental then in the editing process. Collaboration is important because the more “eyes” you have, the more accurate the editing process will be. She calls editors “stewards” who owe it to readers, and those becoming acquainted with editing, to make the editorial process “transparent,” and not pretend to know things they don’t actually know. In her article, “The Human Touch Software of the Highest Order,” Professor Smith discusses the different attitudes towards editing. She insists that even with collaborative efforts, editors need not agree on every aspect of the process. She says, “Each can report what she sees and audiences benefit from multiple viewpoints”(Smith 14). This seems to make collaborative efforts appear more friendly rather than competitive. I think better works can be produced this way.

Alongside her discussion of the editing process, Professor Smith discussed her current work-in-progress, the Emily Dickinson archive.  Her goal is to create an archive that allows for an open “space of knowledge exchange for a networked world of scholars, students, and readers.” One of her aims is to make this archive open for public access. I especially appreciated her outlook on this project, one that does not see knowledge as restricted. Hardvard University has asked her to sell her archive and others urge her to make it a “closed” space. Professor Smith, however, argues that Emily Dickinson’s manuscript is already open because these matters are of public record. She simply doesn’t understand why access to Dickinson’s manuscripts should be restricted. I completely agree. Openness is a key value to uphold as the humanities becomes more and more “digital.” Scholars and non-scholars alike can contribute to the growth of knowledge.

The Beggar and the Player In John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera

What I found to be particularly interesting about John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, is the inclusion of the Beggar, the fictional author of the play, and the Player as characters. These two characters appear in the beginning of the drama and reappear towards the very end, but within different contexts.

The Beggar and the Player are having a discussion in the introduction of The Beggar’s Opera. While they share this dialogue, they are at a distance from the play itself. Why would Gay create a fictional author? Is this his way of avoiding authorship should his contemporaries label him seditious? Would the Beggar and the Player’s exchange be performed on stage, or was it only meant to be read? I asked myself these questions but had trouble answering them. When I first read the exchange between the Beggar and the Player, I was under the impression that the play will adhere to conventions found in the operas. The Beggar makes this clear to the Player when he says, “I have introduced the similes that are in all your celebrated operas” and then goes on to explain some of these inclusions (41). At this point in the reading, I didn’t have the slightest idea as to what the initial dialogue’s purpose is. By the end of the piece, however, I felt I could answer some of my own questions.

By the end of the piece, the Beggar and the Player appear once more. However, they are no longer at a distance, but rather “enter” the scene itself (120).  By entering the scene, have they become characters in the play? It is in this scene that we learn about the Beggar’s authorial intention: to apply “poetical justice” to the end of his play in order to punish vice and reward virtue (120). He thus intended on executing Macheath. The Player, however, interjects and says, “Why then, friend, this is a downright deep tragedy. The catastrophe is manifestly wrong, for an opera must end happily” to which the Beggar complies (191).  Nonetheless, the Beggar makes it clear that had the play gone as he intended, “it would have carried a most excellent moral” (121).

The Beggar and the Player represent a tension existing in Gay’s contemporary society: wanting to abide by the traditional neoclassical features of a drama, and yet having to accommodate the literature to fulfill the public’s new interest. I don’t think Gay was going to simply end his drama within the conventions of an Italian opera without making it clear that he detests doing so. So, how can he do this without facing backlash from his contemporary society? He creates a fictional author, the Beggar.

By the end of the play, I was able to answer some of my initial questions. I was nonetheless left with many more unanswered. Does Gay’s ending imply that the audience’s expectations triumph over the author’s desire? By making the fictional author a beggar, is Gay hinting that the Beggar had no choice but to denounce poetic merit for the sake of making an income? Is the author a commodity then?