The British Library, as one would expect, is very interested in OP - which is, I suppose, the auditory equivalent of reading old tests in their original written form. When we put on the 'Evolving English' exhibition at the Library in 2011, one of the immediate impressions, as one entered the space, was the auditory atmosphere - voices resounding everywhere, and headphones inviting you to listen at several tables. Here you could hear reconstructions of Beowulf, Chaucer, Caxton, Paston, Shakespeare, and more. They proved to be one of the most popular exhibits. There were often queues to listen. And that exhibition proved to be the best-attended of the BL's winter exhbibitions. A definite win for the English language.
The BL followed it up in 2012 with a CD called 'Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation', and this year they have taken OP back almost a century with a CD of William Tyndale's St Matthews's Gospel. The BL has one of the two surviving copies of Tyndale's New Testament (1526) that have survived (the others were burned), and a beautifully produced full-colour facsimile was published by the BL in 2008. This is the version used for the CD. (I was allowed to hold that original edition when we were preparing the 'Evolving English' exhibition, and I was reluctant to wash my hands thereafter, not wanting to remove all traces of the molecules that must have transferred from its pages to me.)
I recorded the Matthew over two days at the BL just a year ago, and it was a very interesting experience. The tricky bit was making myself forget Shakespearean OP. Tyndale is midway between Chaucer and Shakespeare, and if you've ever heard texts from these two authors read in OP you will know just how much change there was in pronunciation at that time. Apart from anything else, there was the huge change in long-vowel phonetic qualities known as the Great Vowel Shift. So after Tyndale, several things happened to pronunciation before we arrive at Shakespeare. For example, the silent letters (in know, gnash, would, and so on) were on their way out by the time Shakespeare was writing, but they were very definitely around in Tyndale's day, so teeth 'guhnash' and people 'kuhnow'. Lots of differences to keep an eye on - too many to remember off the cuff - so it was necessary to transcribe the whole thing in a phonetic transcription before doing the reading. And, of course, as with Hamlet's 'the play's the thing', this was not to be an exercise in historical phonetics, but a genuine reading. I've done this once before, for the St John Gospel, but that was in modern English. An OP reading of any old text brings it to life in a new way, and I hope I was able to capture this in my reading. It's out now, anyway, and can be accessed via the British Library.
6 comments:
Did you ever see Alec McCowen (no relation) perform St. Mark's Gospel? He used the KJV text but in RP (he considered using his native Kentish accent for the Galilean dialogue, but decided he didn't like how it sounded). Amazing stuff. A painter once asked him, "Why did you memorize it? Why don't you just read it?" He retorted, "Why don't you just take photographs?" (from his memoir Double Bill).
When reconstructing the pronunciation, do you just go for a generalised accent for the time period or do you take the regional accent of Tyndale or Shakespeare into account as well? How much do we know about the differences in how the pronunciation of someone from Gloucester would differ from that of someone from London or York or wherever at different periods?
I did indeed. And a nice story. Thanks.
RWMG: I always go for the phonology, not the phonetics, about which little is known - in other words, the sound system that was around at the time. What you actually hear is an Early Modern English phonology, with a modern accent (mine) superimposed. When we did Romeo at Shakespeare's Globe, the actors came from all over the country: they all learned OP, but pronounced it in slightly different ways, reflecting their regional backgrounds - just as people do today with Modern English. There are occasional clues to local accents in the plays and scholarly writings of the period, but not a lot. The main gap in our knowledge is of the intonation of the time, on which so much regional identity depends.
I think it sounds brilliant and almost makes me believe in the concept of tribal memory because when I'm walking and listening through headphones it feels as if my ancestors are whispering. Are there no plans to complete the whole 1526 it's so in your face you can see why More wanted to snap Tyndale's neck.
I'm afraid not. The British Library did this as a one-off, to complement their facsimile edition of the entire Tyndale text.
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