• Next message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: Hawks and Handsaws"
• Previous message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: "not well married""
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ]

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.1627  Wednesday, 27 June 2001

From:           Gabriel Egan <exs01gie@gold.ac.uk>
Date:           Tuesday, 26 Jun 2001 14:46:14 +0100 (BST)
Subject:        Re: Volpone Production Dates

I find I made an error in my posting about Jonson's chronological habits
(Jan-Dec like us, or 25 Mar-24 Mar). I wrote:

> That is to say, the allusion requires
> acceptance that the year "1606"
> given in the Folio refers to 25
> March 1605 to 24 March 1606.

I meant, of course, that the allusion shows that the year "1605" given
in the Folio refers to 25 March 1605 to 24 March 1606.

While I'm picking nits, I hope it is not too pedantic to point out that
calling this Jan-Dec/Mar-Mar difference "new-style/old-style" (as many
people do in their writing) is misleading. Old Style means 'by the
Julian calendar' and New Style means 'by the Gregorian calendar' and
this is often confused with the choice about when (1 Jan or 25 Mar) to
increment the year number because Gregory's bull also decreed that the
year number should be incremented on 1 Jan, and this provision was
written into England's acceptance of New Style in 1752. However, the two
changes are distinct, and when an authority accepted Gregory's calendar
it did not necessarily accept that 1 Jan was the day on which to
increment the year.  On the other hand, some authorities which accepted
Gregory's calendar already were incrementing the year on 1 Jan.

Gabriel Egan

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, editor@ws.bowiestate.edu
The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>

• Next message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: Hawks and Handsaws"
• Previous message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: "not well married""
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ]