View source for Cop 2016

Cop, Michael. "Compositions for a King: Little Gidding's Use of Henry Garthwait's ''Monotesseron''." Script & Print 40.1 (2016): 29-44.

"In the instance of the 1635 harmony—one created specifically for Charles I—Little Gidding cut extracts not only from bibles, but also from another English harmony, Henry Garthwait’s Monotessaron, The Evangelicall Harmony (1634). While critics have long been interested in Little Gidding’s handiwork for Charles I, they have insufficiently attended to how Little Gidding used Monotessaron. As a result, they have frequently under-represented (and at times misrepresented) Little Gidding’s reliance on Monotessaron. After an introduction to gospel harmonies, this paper will demonstrate that recent scholarship has made four claims about Little Gidding’s compositional practices for its 1635 harmony that can be modified by closer examination of Monotessaron: Monotessaron did not simply “len[d] both vocabulary and physical material” to Little Gidding; Little Gidding’s cutting of physical text did not necessarily equal a form of writing in the case of its “Compositions”; Little Gidding’s and Monotessaron’s differing chapter divisions did not necessarily require Little Gidding to modify Monotessaron’s narrative; and Little Gidding required at least two copies of Monotessaron for its extracts." (29-30)

problem of synoptic gospels -- how to reconcile difference?

example of John's beheading, differing accounts

"The Short Title Catalogue enters the concordances under “Nicholas Ferrar” but does not give them separate numbers, “since these volumes are made up of passages cut from black-letter Bibles and engravings, they do not qualify as separate STC items themselves.”" (32)

"Monotessaron to compose the King’s Concordance, but seem to downplay just how much Little Gidding may have relied on Garthwait’s narrative, perhaps taking their lead from Little Gidding itself. That is, a page of words and phrases can be cut to pieces and then rearranged physically (e.g., a quarto’s lines could be rearranged to fit a folio page) without any change to the narrative (i.e., wider margins do not mean a change to the story or to the order in which a story is told). Reordering physically is at best craftsmanship; reordering linguistically is a form of creative rewriting." (36)

challenges [[Smyth 2012]]'s reading that cutting is a form of writing; "Smyth’s observations are both insightful and accurate; however, in the case of Little Gidding’s Compositions, one must also recognise that much of Little Gidding’s “process of selection” was frequently on a sentence-by-sentence rather than a word- by-word basis from its physical source for text, Monotessaron. While Little Gidding did often follow Jansen, it obviously also needed to move from Latin to English and seemed content to rely on Monotessaron in this endeavour—even when Monotessaron’s narrative did not correspond identically with Jansen’s narrative." (37)

"While cutting is indeed a form of technology that can enable writing, one runs the risk of oversimplifying Little Gidding’s use of Monotessaron if one assumes that Little Gidding rewrote using Monotessaron for vocabulary only. Each one of Little Gidding’s Compositions has large swaths of narrative identical to Monotessaron, ranging from the small portion seen in the example of John’s beheading to this whole chapter on the eucharist. If such correspondence can be considered lending, Little Gidding had often borrowed much more than just vocabulary and repaid Garthwait only in the most liberal of senses. Little Gidding specifically credited a deceased continental Latin writer rather than a contemporary countryman on whom the community had at times obviously relied." (40)

"If Little Gidding was willing to use one whole chapter of narrative from Monotessaron unaltered, why did it not appropriate every chapter from Monotessaron?" (40) -- LG and Garthwait working from two different divisions of material (150 chapters in LG, 212 in Garthwait, since LG followed Jansen and Garthwait followed Chemitz's Latin Harmony -- see [[Dyck 2008]])

2, possibly 3 copies of Monotesseron

"If Little Gidding clearly thought enough of Monotessaron to have two (or possibly three) copies of it and seemingly to follow its lead for extended stretches of narrative for its Compositions, why did Little Gidding not credit Henry Garthwait? It could be that Little Gidding saw Monotessaron as no more than a physical resource, but the fact that it used one of Monotessaron’s chapters without alteration and large swaths of others makes this possibility seem unlikely. Monotessaron did not just lend vocabulary; it lent narrative. It could be negligence, but the fact that Little Gidding named Jansen in its introduction makes this possibility seem relatively unlikely too. It could be that Little Gidding saw holy writ as nobody’s property. Just as biblical translators built on and used previous translations (Tyndale’s wording frequently informs subsequent English translations of the Bible), and just as Garthwait could use the words and phrases of the Authorised Version and string them together based on the narrative structure of Chemnitz’s harmony without compunction, so too could Little Gidding cut hundreds of sequential words from Monotessaron dozens of times to create large portions of many Compositions in the King’s Concordance. A cynic might equally suggest that Little Gidding displays motives similar to anyone else who might use contemporaneous ideas or work without acknowledgement: a desire for the sole credit. Whatever its reasons, Little Gidding continues to be studied and admired for its pious handiwork while Garthwait’s narrative remains relatively underappreciated. Recognising Garthwait’s possible contributions to the King’s Concordance—even if only to help understand Little Gidding’s compositional processes—is a bit overdue." (44)