ABSTRACT
The commercial drama of the early modern period only gradually gained a degree of recognition as a literary art. The attitudes exhibited by Sir Thomas Bodley when he was assembling his library in 1612, were fairly widespread. Bodley wrote to his librarian, Thomas James:
I can see no good reason to alter my opinion, for excluding suche bookes, as almanackes, plaies, & an infinit number, that are daily printed, of very vnworthy maters & handlyng, suche as, me thinkes, both the keeper & vnderkeeper should disdaine to seeke out, to deliuer vnto any man. Happely some plaies may be worthy the keeping: but hardly one in fortie. For it is not alike in Englishe plaies, & others of other nations: because they are most esteemed, for learning the languages & many of them compiled, by men of great fame, for wisedome & learning, which is seeldom or neuer seene among vs. Were it so againe, that some litle profit might be reaped (which God knowes is very litle) out of some of our playbookes, the benefit therof will nothing neere conteruaile, the harme that the scandal will bring vnto the Librarie, when it shalbe giuen out, that we stuffe it full of baggage bookes.
(Wheeler, 1926, 221-2) In an earlier letter he had remarked:There are many idle bookes, & nffe raffes among them, which shall neuer com unto the Librarie, & I feare me that litle, which you haue done alreadie, will raise a scandal vpon it, when it shall be giuen out, by suche as would disgrace it, that I haue made vp a number, with Almanackes, plaies, & proclamacions: of which I will haue none, but suche as are singular.
(ibid., 919) 72Bodley's fears are less to do with the intrinsic qualities of his library than the risks to its reputation and - by extension - his own. His concerns are to do with the 'scandal' to his name and standing which might be occasioned by the inclusion of the drama and other putatively ephemeral writing because of their perceived lack of intellectual substance and therefore their inappropriateness as the reading matter of a gentleman. There is some irony in the fact that Bodley's attitudes are facilitated precisely by the breadth of literacy in the period and the consequently large production of reading matter of various types. 1 Social and intellectual discriminations between types of written product needed to be made since being literate was not a sufficient distinction in itself.