IV
We may now turn finally to the problem of the relationships between
the various branches of bibliography. Most of what has been previously
established can be summarized in the following diagram which, for
purposes of completeness, includes the process of reading. Σ represents
a closed material sign system or document (what we have been calling the
Object), R stands for reading, and A for analytical bibliography.
Broken lines in the above diagram represent objective
relationships, i.e. that of an activity to its Object. These are the
relationships we have been using to define the branches of bibliography, but
they may also be used to assist in the definition of the relationships between
the branches. Thus the unbroken vertical lines (between EDT) represent
generic relationships. The activities in such a relationship
form
a class, the basis for which is that their relationships to their Object do not
differ in essential quality but only in degree. Members of this class are
related through the possession of similar attributes, but not by any
operational interdependence. Each activity operates independently of the
others, and knowledge of any special, non-essential requirements of one
such activity is not necessary for the successful operation of another. Since
EDT does form a distinct class, we may now provide it with a generic
designation: representational
bibliography.
Horizontal arrows stand for efficient relationships. Such
a relationship arises when one activity is necessarily affected by another
essentially different activity. We must use arrows rather than simply lines
because such an efficient relationship is directional and the arrows indicate
the direction of influence from the causal entity to the affected one. Thus
while the elements in a generic relationship are independent or
simultaneous, an efficient relationship is one of dependence or
succession.
One particularly problematic area in the distinctions made by
Professor Bowers has been that his preference for describing textual
criticism and descriptive bibliography mainly in terms of analytical
bibliography has tended occasionally to draw attention away from the
unique characteristics of the latter. This has, per force,
weakened another of his central arguments, namely that analytical
bibliography "can be pursued independently of any limited objective"
(Ency. Brit., p. 588). The distinction between generic and
efficient relationships should alleviate this problem, for it establishes
analytical bibliography as a generically separate activity in its own right
which, at the same time, can be related
on a different level than the generic to the separate activities of
representational bibliography.
But on what basis may we posit such efficient relationships? Again,
only on the basis of objective relationships. The relationship between
reading and its Object is essentially interpretive (ι1). It functions to
interpet the individual meanings of the signs in the system as verbal
symbols. The relationship between analytical bibliography and the same
Object is also essentially interpretive (ι2), for it, too, interprets the
meanings of signs in the system, although it views them as mechanical
indexes. This is significant: for to state only—as has been the
common
practice—that analytical bibliography serves textual criticism which
in
turn serves literary criticism is a rather limited, "two dimensional" view of
the functions of these fields. Only by adding the "third dimension" of the
objective relationship do we realize that analytical bibliography as an
activity has much more in common with literary analysis (i.e. reading) than
with either descriptive bibliography or
textual criticism, since both reading and analytical bibliography are
essentially interpretive activities. If we were to oversimplify the entire
system, which might be justifiable, say, in the classroom for pedagogical
purposes, we could state that analytical bibliography, as opposed to
representational bibliography, is simply another form of reading: the
analytical bibliographer merely "reads" in a different "language," namely
that provided often by historical bibliography. The semiotic systems
recognized by the literary critic and the analytical bibliographer are
different, but the fundamental skills applied to the two systems are
essentially the same.
The objective relationship, on the other hand, of representational
bibliography is—as we have defined it—one of duplication
(δ). Its
essential function is to duplicate sign systems, yet prior to such duplication,
decisions must be made concerning which signs are to be duplicated: which
titles in which order, which "internal" and "external" data, which variants.
Most of these decisions can only be made through interpretation of the signs
available. Thus interpretation necessarily precedes and affects duplication,
although it remains a generically separate operation.
It should, in conclusion, be emphasized that analytical bibliography,
no less than reading, may as a distinct activity, produce results in any
single instance which do not necessarily affect representational
bibliography. Chain-line direction, for example, may be a sign which
sometimes decrypts to half-sheet imposition, yet that information may not
necessarily influence decisions made in the critical edition of many
documents where such indexical signs are found. What is the value, then,
of results of analytical bibliography which do not specifically affect
representational
bibliography? Many bibliographers begin as literary critics, yet they quickly
seem to forget that the practitioners of humanistic literary criticism (as
opposed to Marxism or other forms of criticism which accept absolutes
outside of the text) have no easy time justifying
their
existence.
To say, then, that analytical bibliography is the "grammar" (or the
"dictionary") of literary investigation, to maintain that it exists only to be
applied to the production of accurate texts upon which literary criticism
may securely ply its craft is not much of a justification. The simple fact is
rather that any set of signs, once recognized as such, necessarily contains
within itself a number of problems: what do the signs signify? how did they
come to be the way they are? how do they relate to other signs? can they
be replicated or imitated? The only difference between disciplines is that
each recognizes different sets of signs or different varieties of problems
inherent in them, and it
is in each case the simple recognition of such problems which justifies the
search for their solution.
