『비너스와 아도니스』와 『루크리스의 능욕』의 초간사절본 표지를 통해 본 셰익스피어 시대의 인쇄 문화

Abstract

Shakespeare's sonnets, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, have at least two things significant about them: one is that they were the only works printed and published signed by him; the other is that Shakespeare himself was actually involved in their printing process. Though the poet is well known for his indifference to the publication of his plays, critics agree that in these two cases, Shakespeare visited the printer's house day-by-day and conducted proofreading with his manuscripts in hand, carefully correcting printed-out pages one-by-one. To most readers of today, the title pages of Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594) seem to have no major differences between them. There are many similarities between the title pages of these two sonnet books, including the headpieces, colophons, and notably the printer's anchor devices. These title pages do not contain the poet's name, and on The Rape of Lucrece, the title has been contracted to "LVCRECE". What is most interesting is the crossing pattern of two laurel sprigs on it. The sprigs in the printer's device of Venus and Adonis are crossing behind the axile of the anchor, while those of The Rape of Lucrece are crossing right before the axile. Richard Field, a Stratford printer, printed these two sonnet books. Questions thus arise: Where do these similarities and dissimilarities come from? Did Shakespeare know about them? How much these decorations and devices are related to the sonnets? Did Shakespeare know about the absence of his name on the title pages? If yes, how did he feel about that fact? The purpose of this paper is to propose probable answers to these questions by an analysis of the printing culture in England and on the Continent in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The similarities of title pages between Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece came largely from Richard Field's reusing of his master's, Thomas Vautrollier’s, woodcut blocks. Vautrollier was a French printer and publisher who fled from France to escape danger of being arrested for publishing books about atheism. He established businesses in London and Edinburgh from 1562 to 1587, and Richard Field was his apprentice for six years during this time. In 1597, Field became a freeman, shortly before his master’s death. Less than one year later, Field married Vautrollier's widow Jacqueline. By so doing, almost all the printing facilities of his former master, including the decoration blocks, passed to him. In laying-out the quarto title-page of Venus and Adonis, Field was not very conscious of the authorship of William Shakespeare. In that, at that time, Shakespeare was just a young Stratfordian who was writing for patrons and theater companies. Field could not imagine this Shakespeare should become in a short time the famous poet and playwright. In such a mindset, Field casually contracted the poet's original title of The Rape of Lucrece to just "LVCRECE," not knowing that he was printing two important sonnets, one of which should become a rare example of Ovidian pattern of love. Like typical Elizabethan printers, Field paid more attention to the advertising of his own shop via the artistic works, imprinting his trade marks of "Anchora spei"(the Anchor of Hope), the whole enclosed in an oval frame. Today, we do not have much information about the unknown artists who made those woodcut blocks in Elizabethan England. There were many ways for Elizabethan printers to acquire their woodcut blocks. But there is a possibility that the anchor device on The Rape of Lucrece (1594) might have been made by Richard Field because its unique style of two laurel sprigs in it. Among the several anchor devices used by Thomas Vautrollier and later by Richard Field only this device shows that the two laurel sprigs are crossing before the axile of the anchor. This uniqueness leads us to make a guess that Richard Field tried a small change in design during his training of cutting wood blocks for his master's device. Shakespeare seems to know well about the anchor devices of Richard Field because he had already seen those devices on the title pages of books, including Plutarch's Lives (1579), a book in which he was "before long to be well versed." Moreover, he was not ignorant of those title pages with his name missing, but we do not find any record of complaint about them. This tells us that Shakespeare simply recognized the Elizabethan printing conventions in which the right of laying out of title pages belonged to the printers whose sole interest was to increase the book's marketability. Indeed, Shakespeare reflects his thanks to Richard Field in Cymbeline when Imogen recalls his old master's name "Richard du Champ"(4.2.379) as it was the French name of Richard Field. Yet, on the first quarto title-pages of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece where the poet's name is absent, we unconsciously remember William Shakespeare. Conversely, how many of us now attend to Richard Field, who clearly and conspicuously imprinted his name and device on the title pages? It is one of the life's little ironies, reminding us of the meaning of genuine immortality.