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Notes
This article is a revision and expansion of a paper delivered at the conference on Modern Methods and Problems of Editing which was held under the direction of Dr. Hans Walter Gabler at the Study and Conference Center of the Rockefeller Foundation, in Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy, from September 20th to 25th, 1973. Translated from German by Charity Meier-Ewert and Hans Walter Gabler.
"Prolegomena zu einer Goethe-Ausgabe", in Goethe, N.F., 12 (1950), 60-88. Quotations here are from the revised publication in Beiträge zur Goetheforschung, ed. Ernst Grumach (Berlin 1959), pp. 1-34 ( Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Veröffentlichungen des Institutes für deutsche Sprache und Literatur, 16).
Goethe, Epen (Volume editor: Siegfried Scheibe) 1. Text (Berlin 1958). 2. Ueberlieferung, Varianten und Paralipomena (Berlin 1963). ( Werke Goethes. Edited by the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin.)
Probably because of the differing conditions of the German language. According to Greg in his fundamental contribution of 1950 ("The Rationale of Copy-Text", repr. in Collected Papers, ed. J. C. Maxwell, Oxford 1966), it is "the historical circumstances of the English language" (p. 384) which necessitate the distinction. I therefore leave this aspect out of consideration.
"Grundlagen der Goethe-Ausgabe, ausgearbeitet von Mitarbeitern der Goethe-Ausgabe." Circulated in MS. 43 fols., n.p., n.d. Based upon these "Grundlagen", discussing them and enlarging upon them, is Siegfried Scheibe's contribution, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien einer historisch-kritischen Ausgabe", in Texte und Varianten, Probleme ihrer Edition und Interpretation, ed. Gunter Martens and Hans Zeller (Muenchen 1971), pp. 1-44.
See the systematic discussion in Fredson Bowers, "Multiple Authority: New Problems and Concepts of Copy-Text", The Library, 5th ser., 27 (1972), 81-115, especially pp. 97ff.
Cf. Fredson Bowers, "Current Theories of Copy-Text", in Modern Philology 48 (1950/51), p. 15, n. 15: One would need to determine "which method is likely to retain more authoritative readings than it rejects . . . in retaining the maximum possible number." — If quotations here and subsequently are almost exclusively from Fredson Bowers' articles and editions, the simple reason is that during the short time of my acquaintance with Anglo-American editing, so admirable a discipline in the eyes of a Germanist, the work of Fredson Bowers has been my main point of reference. This gives me the opportunity of expressing my deep respect for an editorial achievement which in my opinion does not have its equal by far in German studies.
Fredson Bowers, "Textual Introduction" to Maggie, in The University of Virginia Edition of the Works of Stephen Crane, I (Charlottesville 1969), p. xciii.
Friedrich Hölderlin, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Friedrich Beissner. Vol. II (Stuttgart 1951), 118, 667, 672 (H1, H3).
In his article of 1950, W. W. Greg recommends a treatment of the textual witnesses of works of the English Renaissance in accordance with editorial practice customary for manuscript transmission, which raises the question of whether it is permissible at all to apply his principles under different transmissional circumstances: "In respect of substantive readings we have exactly the same liberty (and obligation) of choice as has a classical editor" (Collected Papers, p. 377). Greg discusses R. B. McKerrow's editorial principles (Prolegomena for the Oxford Shakespeare [Oxford 1939], p. 17 f.) and states that where McKerrow had postulated that an editor accept "all the alterations" of a revised edition, he had "failed to add the equally important proviso that the alterations must also be of a piece (and not . . . of apparently disparate origin)", or "his canon is open to exactly the same objections as the 'most authoritative manuscript' theory in classical editing" (38of.). In the same context, Greg affirms that the "one important respect in which the editing of classical texts differs from that of English" is that the former normalise spelling (p. 375). The main difference therefore is seen to reside not in text constitution. It would seem to me that these remarks set out very clearly under what conditions alone Greg's principles, that is to say, the establishment of any given number of individual readings, should be considered as valid editorial guidance; namely, only in cases of radiating contaminated transmission, such as are the rule in texts with a mediaeval transmissional tradition, and, therefore, where it is the editorial aim to attain texts which are better than any extant textual witness. In texts, on the other hand, which have not already come upon us in radiating contaminated witnesses, but in such as contain distinct, albeit partly corrupt, versions, it is the editor, reconstructing a single version according to Greg's principles, who brings about the contamination. — The problem of contamination will be dealt with in section III.
This is emphasized in order to forestall the opinion that poetic language serves to express concepts and thoughts which might be enhanced and improved upon by revision. That this is not so will be further discussed in the following section.
Cf. Miroslav Cervenka, "Textologie und Semiotik", in Texte und Varianten, pp. 143-163, especially p. 152. — Clearly, it is essential to our present view and argument that works of literature function by virtue of manifold relationships between their elements. Just as clearly, such functionality does not become manifest in certain genres, or in works of limited length, only. The argument should be considered valid therefore not merely for lyrical poetry, but equally for narrative and dramatic works. The only reason for the exclusive reference here to lyrical texts is that in their relative brevity they can be more conveniently presented. An investigation on similar lines of the two versions of Gottfried Keller's Der grüne Heinrich, a novel in four books, has confirmed my views, but an account of the naturally much more complex conditions which obtain there and a discussion of the relationships revealed would by far exceed the scope of an example and of this article. An example in suitable isolation from Klopstock's gigantic epic in 20 cantos Der Messias is discussed by Elisabeth Höpker-Herberg, "Ausschnitte aus dem synoptischen Apparat zum 'Messias'", in Kolloquium über Probleme der Kommentierung im Freien Deutschen Hochstift, Frankfurt/M. (12.-14. Oktober 1970), Referate und Diskussionsbeiträge (Bonn - Bad Godesberg 1971), pp. 103-104, 109; and by Christiane and Martin Boghardt, "Die Halleschen Messias-Drucke von 1751/1752", in Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts 1971, pp. 3-4 (concerning Messias, canto II, 339 f.). This example is analogous to Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's ballad presented in section III below.
F. Beissner, "Editionsmethoden der neueren deutschen Philologie", in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 83 (1964), Sonderheft, 94 f.
The realisation of this concept may at present be seen in vols. 1-3 of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Sämtliche Werke, Historisch-kritische Ausgabe (Bern 1958 ff., in progress; vols. 1-7 under the editorship of Hans Zeller), and in the forthcoming apparatus volumes to the lyrical works in Georg Heym, Dichtungen und Schriften, Gesamtausgabe, edited by K. L. Schneider and Gunter Martens (Hamburg 1962 ff.).
Fredson Bowers, "Textual Introduction" to The Marble Faun, The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, IV (Columbus, Ohio 1968), p. lxviii.
Fredson Bowers, "Textual Introduction" to The Blithedale Romance, Hawthorne Centenary Edition, III, p. liii; see also "Editorial Principles", p. 490.
The University of Virginia Edition of the Works of Stephen Crane, I, pp. xx, lxvii f., xcii ff.
I am not implying that interpretation should not be part of the editor's task — on the contrary. See also my contribution "Befund und Deutung. Interpretation und Dokumentation als Ziel und Methode der Edition", in Texte und Varianten, pp. 45-89, especially pp. 47 ff., 77 ff.
See the list of changes and their motives in Richard Hamel, Klopstock-Studien, Heft 3 (Rostock 1880), p. 123.
In Art and Error: Modern Textual Editing, ed. Ronald Gottesman and Scott Bennett (Bloomington and London 1970), pp. 62-101.
This happens in ll. 20, 21: in D4, l. 20, the punctuation is too heavy, in l. 21 too light; in both instances D5 reacts by variation.
It cannot be determined whether the subtitle was deleted in D4 by Meyer or by the editor of the anthology; the deletion follows from the fact that in D4, contrary to D3, the poem is not published individually.
It should be observed that relationships exist not only between adjoining elements, but throughout the text on and between all levels, the phonological, metrical, rhythmical, symbolical etc. level, as explained at the end of section I.
Translated from the German version in Zur Theorie der Dichtkunst, Aufsätze und Vorträge, übertragen von K. Leonhard (Frankfurt/M. 1962), pp. 180 f. — C. F. Meyer created a case in point when he twice corrected a sheet of the story "Angela Borgia", the first one having got temporarily lost in the printing shop. The two sets of revisions were made in immediate temporal succession. Nevertheless they are not identical: of a total of 36 changes (of which 23 are changes in substantive readings), only 16 occur in both copies (10 of which are substantive variants). See C. F. Meyer, Sämtliche Werke, XIV (Bern 1966). p. 311, 357-362.
We, that is the editors who were at the time engaged upon the Academy edition of Goethe in Berlin, the editors of the Hamburg Klopstock edition, and the editors of the works of Georg Heym. My conversations with all of them, and with Dr. Gunter Martens of Hamburg in particular, have helped considerably to clarify my own thoughts.
I take over the definition as given by Siegfried Scheibe on p. 28 of his 1971 article (see footnote 5).
The criterion of "sense" and text-specific logic is amply discussed on pp. 61-74 of my "Befund und Deutung" (see foot-note 28).
Georg Heym, Gesammelte Gedichte, ed. Carl Seelig (Zürich 1947), pp. 171, 239. Cf. Heym, Dichtungen und Schriften, I (1964), 318. — A similar example in Milton's "Comus", where numerous editors for internal reasons, and without foundation in bibliographical and transmissional fact, had introduced an erroneous conjecture, is referred to by J. Thorpe on p. 81 of "The Aesthetics of Textual Criticism" (see footnote 33).
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