University of Virginia Library

ii. Symbols

Practically every edition makes some use of symbols or abbreviations; indeed, they are almost unavoidable unless one is dealing with a text so uncomplicated that scarcely any apparatus results. The primary motive behind most (but not all) symbols and abbreviations is economy, for if an editor is going to refer dozens (or even hundreds) of times to a particular impression, published at a given time by a given publisher and identifiable perhaps only by certain typographical peculiarities, it is merely common sense that he devise some concise way of making the reference. But he must also realize that, beyond a point, the interests of economy work in the opposite direction from those of clarity. In 1863 William Aldis Wright recognized (as every editor must) this dilemma: "We will now proceed," he said in the introduction to the Cambridge Shakespeare, "to explain the notation employed in the foot-notes, which, in some cases, the necessity of compressing

may have rendered obscure" (p. xxii). When symbols are multiplied to the point where it is difficult for the reader to keep them in mind, so that he must constantly consult a key to decipher what is being said, the time has come to rethink the whole system. In some fields, such as mathematics or chemistry, symbolic statements, however complex, are admirably suited to the purposes they are intended to serve; but the apparatus to a literary text is generally directed toward the readers and students of that text, for whom a knowledge of special symbols is not necessary in their principal work of understanding the text. It is not reasonable, therefore, to ask the users of a textual apparatus to become acquainted with an elaborate symbolic structure, since that apparatus is only a reference tool, rather than the central focus of their attention. Nineteenth-century editors tended to make excessive demands along these lines; and even McKerrow's Prolegomena, though its thoughtful treatment of symbols is important and though the symbols it advocates are individually sensible, sets up too many of them, with the result that in combination they can be bewildering. Fortunately, the recent trend, since Bowers's Dekker, has been toward the simplification of symbols. In thinking about editorial symbols, the essential principle to be kept in mind is that for this purpose the value of a symbol ought to be judged on the basis of convenience rather than economy (though economy is often a prime element in convenience): if a symbol, both in itself and in combination with others, makes the apparatus easier to refer to and understand, it is a good one; if it does not, it should be abandoned.

Perhaps a distinction should be made between symbols which stand for particular editions or impressions and those which stand for concepts. One cannot object to a multiplicity of symbols representing editions, if there happens to be a large number of editions involved, for the symbols are still easier to manipulate than cumbersome identifications of the editions in words; but further symbols to be used in conjunction with the edition-symbols for making comments about particular situations may easily proliferate to the point where they are less easy to follow than the same concepts expressed in words. Thus when McKerrow uses parentheses to indicate "a reading which is not identical with the one given but which is substantially the same in meaning or intention so far as the purpose of the note is concerned" (p. 82) and then inserts two parallel vertical lines within the parentheses "as a warning that, although the editions thus indicated support the reading in question, the context in which their reading occurs is not identical with that of the other texts" (p. 85), one may begin to feel that the goal of the apparatus has become compression rather than ease of

comprehension.[26] Yet no one would be likely to have strong objection to the many abbreviations and symbols — such as "Theo.," "Johns.," "Cap.," "Camb.," "Fl," "Q1"—which McKerrow employs as shorthand designations for individuals editions. Indeed, these abbreviations, though numerous, are largely self-evident and rarely would need to be looked up more than once; even aside from their economy and ease of transcription, therefore, they have the positive advantage of being recognizable at a glance (whereas a fuller identification in words normally would take somewhat longer to read).

If it can be agreed, then, that the use of symbols is desirable for reference to editions and impressions, the practical question which arises is what system to use in establishing the symbols. There are two basic approaches: one is to arrange the editions in chronological order and then to assign them arbitrary sequential designations, such as the letters of the alphabet or numbers; the other is to construct each symbol so that it contains enough rational content connecting it with its referent to serve as a mnemonic. The choice of system depends on what kind of information is deemed most useful in connection with a given text, since each system, in order to make certain facts obvious, sacrifices other facts. In the first system, one can tell immediately that a particular reading is, for example, from the third edition (by means of a "C" or "3") but cannot tell (and may not be able to remember without checking) the year of that edition and whether it was English or American. The second system, conversely, might provide in the symbol the information that the edition was an 1856 American one (through some such symbol as "A1856" or "A56") but would not at the same time reveal its position in the sequence of editions. A variety of the first system has conventionally been used for pre-nineteenth-century books: a letter designating format (such as "F" for folio and "Q" for quarto), followed by numbers indicating the succession of editions within each format. Thus "Q4" would identify the fourth quarto but would not indicate the year of publication nor whether the edition came before or after the second folio. Attempts to combine the two approaches have not been successful because forcing too much significance into a symbol renders the symbol more cumbersome and to some extent defeats the purpose of establishing symbols as simple and easily recognizable designations. An edition reference like "3A56" is,

on the fact of it, not simple, particularly when it occurs in a table full of similar references; furthermore, it contains a possible ambiguity (whether the 1856 American edition is the third edition or the third American edition) which may cause its meaning to be less easy to remember and may keep one turning to the key for reassurance. If it is also necessary to take impressions into account, the symbol becomes even more unwieldly, whether it is "3A2(56)," "3Ab56," "AIIIii56," or whatever. It is clearly a mistake to try to construct symbols which reveal edition, impression, year, and country of publication at the same time; if a symbol is to serve efficiently its basic function of providing a convenient and unambiguous reference, it cannot bear the weight of so much information, and the editor must decide which pieces of information will produce the most useful symbols in a given situation.

For earlier periods (before the beginnings of machine-printed books), the bibliographical and textual information conveyed by reference to format makes such symbols as F1, F2, Q1, etc., more revealing than reference to years of publication would be — and simpler as well, since the common situation in which more than one quarto appeared in a single year would have to be reflected in letters or other marks appended to the year designations. This system is one of the few well-established conventions in reference notation, and, with usefulness and simplicity on its side, there is little reason to oppose its popularity. For later books, however, format cannot always be determined and in any case is a less useful fact for incorporation in the symbol, since the variants to be reported are likely to be between impressions as well as editions. The most obvious adjustment would be merely to eliminate the format designation and use consecutive numbers (or letters) to refer to successive editions, with attached letters (or numbers) to indicate impressions within any edition. The Hawthorne edition assigns capital roman numerals to editions, with superscript lower-case letters for impressions (e.g., "IIIc"), while the Howells edition employs capital letters for editions, with arabic numerals for impressions (e.g., "B2").[27] Such a system is simple and neat; but, if a large number of editions and impressions are involved, it is difficult, even

with repeated use, to remember with certainty what many of the symbols stand for, and continual reference to the key is unavoidable. A mnemonic system, on the other hand, may generally be somewhat less simple; but, so long as it is not a great deal more cumbersome, the fact that the user can remember numerous symbols without difficulty may be regarded as an offsetting advantage. (Besides being easier to use, brief symbols may be preferable for practical reasons of economy, especially if the apparatus is set in double column, where longer symbols might produce additional run-over lines.) Probably the most workable and adaptable mnemonic system is to identify editions by letters and to attach years for particular impressions. Thus if only one English and one American edition are involved, the letters "E" and "A" are sufficient, with a given impression referred to as "E1855" or "E55." When more editions are involved, letters representing the name of the publisher or the city of publication could be used; and when more than one impression occurs in a particular year, appended lowercase letters could indicate the sequence within the year. References to manuscript, typescript, and proof could employ the usual symbols "MS," "TS," and "P," as in the Howells edition. Obviously other adjustments would be required in certain situations. If, for example, there is more than one edition from the same publisher, a prefixed number could indicate the fact (as "2H," where "H" stands for the publisher's name), unless year-designations are going to appear so often as to make the symbol cumbersome. In that case the technique of consecutive lettering could be applied, though with some lessening of the mnemonic value of the system, which would then be evident principally in designations of later impressions ("C75" would be the 1875 impression of the third edition).

Regardless of the variations in the basic system, an extremely useful convention which emerges is that a letter by itself stands for all impressions of an edition and a year is attached only when a particular impression is meant. But even this convention is best modified in certain situations: in the case of Irving's Mahomet there is only one English impression but nine American printings, all from the same publisher; the sensible way in which the Wisconsin edition assigns symbols here is to use "E" for the English impression and simple year designations without attached letters ("50" for "1850") for the Putnam impressions.[28] This arrangement is perfectly clear and is

simpler than if a superfluous "A" or "P" were prefixed to the numbers. In another kind of situation, a letter may even be made to stand for more than one edition. Some volumes of the Crane edition, for example, involve syndicated newspaper pieces, for which the text in one newspaper is no closer to the syndicate's master proof and no more authoritative than the text in many other newspapers. In these instances of "radiating texts," Fredson Bowers introduces (in the fifth volume of the Crane) the symbol "N" to stand for all the located newspaper texts, attaching superscript figures when necessary to identify specific newspapers. The generic letter suggests the essential equality of the various newspaper editions, and the superscript figures distinguish themselves from the regular figures used in other symbols to indicate chronological sequence. The basic principle in each situation is to make the symbols as simple as the textual situation will allow, so long as they retain enough substance to be easily remembered. (Certain symbols which are sometimes used to stand for groups of edition-symbols are commented on below in the discussion of the historical collation.)

In regard to symbols which stand for abstract concepts or relationships rather than concrete documents or impressions, the most prudent course of action is to keep their number as small as possible. Only two such symbols (both suggested in McKerrow's Prolegomena) have gained any currency in recent editions, and the reasons for their importance will suggest the kinds of circumstances in which symbols are desirable. Both symbols are used in reporting variants in punctuation: one, the centered tilde or wavy dash (˜), stands for the word previously cited, when the variant is not in the word but in the punctuation associated with it; the other, the caret (V), calls attention to the absence of punctuation at a given point. The justification for the first is not simply that it saves the effort of repeating the identical word, for the small amount of effort saved would be no justification at all if the repetition of the word would be clearer; the fact is, however, that the information is conveyed more clearly with the symbol than without it:

In the second example, the reader may see the difference in punctuation immediately, but he cannot be sure that no other difference is involved until he examines the two words closely to see that they are identical;[29] in the first, the curved dash tells him instantly that the only variant reported here is that of punctuation. Furthermore, using the curved dash eliminates the possibility of introducing a typographical error into the word the second time it is set; hopefully such an error would be caught in proofreading, but there is no point in needlessly setting up situations in which errors of this kind can enter. The caret is similarly useful in providing a clearer statement than is possible without it: The difficulty with the last two examples is that in them empty space is made to carry the burden of significance for the entry. It is true, of course, that no foolproof way exists to guarantee the accuracy of what appears in print, and it may be that in proofreading the danger of overlooking an unintentional omission of punctuation is no greater than that of failing to notice an incorrect mark of punctuation. Nevertheless, it is reassuring to the reader to find a caret calling attention to an intended lack of punctuation. In any case, the whole point of the entry is to inform the reader that punctuation is absent at a given spot in a particular text, and it is more straightforward to make this point positively by actually noting the lack than to imply it by simply printing nothing. As these two symbols illustrate, therefore, conceptual symbols are justified when they reduce the chances of error in proof-reading, when they are clearer in the context than their referents would be, or when they eliminate the necessity of regarding the absence of something as significant. The wavy dash and the caret may take a few seconds to learn, but the importance of what they contribute easily outweighs whatever unfamiliarity they may at first present to some readers. When a symbol fails to meet these tests — that is, when it is merely a shorthand device and makes no positive contribution to clarity — it is better not adopted, for only a slight proliferation of such symbols can render an apparatus needlessly forbidding. Except in certain editions of manuscripts,[30] there is rarely any need to have more symbols than the curved dash and the caret, along with the symbols for individual documents.