Samuel Pepys Diary—Changing
Media
Samuel Pepys’s diary gives us an insight into the mind of a
common person at a time when the world changed drastically, looking outwards
and offering new possibilities for the Benjamin Franklin-type “self-made man”
(or woman). Appropriately, the fate of
Pepys’s text also reflects a revolution of its own: how our studies of this
period and the century that followed have been opened out by revolutions in
media.
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The diary ms was written in a shorthand that
Pepys almost certainly learned when he was a student at Magdelene College,
Cambridge: http://www.pepys-club.org.uk/page3.html
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In the years since 1825, when the diary was
first published, it has been kept between the covers of printed volumes—pages and
pages of them, with notes added and refined over the years.
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Within the last decade it has been progressively
digitized, the most diligent site being Phil Gyford’s:
What are some of the pros and cons?
Like other digital databases (more so than many) this one is
a gem, hugely enhancing the possibilities for work on Pepys; it completely
changes the scholarly and readerly landscape, putting all who engage in Pepys
on a more equal footing. But, like other
databases, there are some considerations to keep in mind.
--You can use search terms to find diary entries on the
topic you are interested in (Pepys and Lady Castlemaine)
--Quickly see what was happening on a particular day and what the weather was like
--Translate the entries into German or other languages
--engage in discussion with the editor and others (“amateurs”) who leave comments
--approach Pepys as a scholar rather than a reader; you can miss much of what he is saying and hence the complexities and contradictions of his character—and why these might be. Pepys was a terrible hypocrite. Reading just a few entries probably reinforces this. If you read the entire diary, however, you see why he acted as he did, that he took many cues from his king, the exigencies of the period provoked certain behaviors especially in this moment of change.
--Quickly see what was happening on a particular day and what the weather was like
--Translate the entries into German or other languages
--engage in discussion with the editor and others (“amateurs”) who leave comments
--approach Pepys as a scholar rather than a reader; you can miss much of what he is saying and hence the complexities and contradictions of his character—and why these might be. Pepys was a terrible hypocrite. Reading just a few entries probably reinforces this. If you read the entire diary, however, you see why he acted as he did, that he took many cues from his king, the exigencies of the period provoked certain behaviors especially in this moment of change.
As I attempted to communicate in class, one of the most important things which I think is lost in this kind of search function is the actual event of reading the text itself and how that places individual studies in a larger context.
ReplyDeleteFor example, let's say you wanted to study Pepys and buttons. If you found every passage written by Pepys in which he talked about buttons, would you be well-informed enough to start a project on it? Surely not, for you'd also need to investigate other things germane to the button issues; perhaps how he speaks about buttons in comparison to other articles of clothing. And, since buttons are mostly a trivial matter, you'd want to compare the language he uses to talk about something as mundane as buttons with the language he uses to talk about events of real historical importance (from what I've seen of his notes on Charles II's coronation, he'd likely be more interested in buttons).
And all of this assumes you have at least a working knowledge of Pepys, his style, and the historical context in which he is writing.
But, fine. Let's say you have all of that. Can you then just handpick the passages you want to talk about. Surely you could (and I think with a lot of texts, especially philosophical ones, that would be very helpful), but one must remember that Pepys' text is a diary, a written account of his day-to-day affairs. As such, I feel that the study of *any* individual entry would be enriched by placing it in its moment-to-moment context, which would probably mean reading the week leading up to and the week after the entry you want. After all, if there are discrepancies in *how* Pepys talks about buttons, isn't it reasonable to assume, given the highly personal nature of diary-writing, that they might be caused the things that were happening to him at the moment?
All of this is not meant to downplay the incrrdible help such a resource is or to imply that it has no use. And there is certianly value in isolating passages from his diaries and speaking about without much reference to their context. But I believe that Pepys is a unique figure in literary history because his work is both of extreme historical and literary importance AND inextricably tied to his actual life, as he lived it. So, for me anyway, in the case of Pepys, I would feel uncomfortable doing any sort of topical comparative work without having read a lot more his diaries than jsut the entries in which my topic were contained. If I were studying Pepys and buttons, I don't think I could do it without that sort of (admittedly time-consuming) context.
I agree with Zack that a full reading of the diaries is invaluable to the Restoration scholar to gain a deeper understanding of the period. However, I am also excited to use the Search capabilities to find some specific entries. I am hoping to find references to Pepys seeing and meeting Margaret Cavendish (thank you, Dr. Caldwell!).
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