University of Virginia Library

II. Descriptive Transcription

The transcription of a manuscript may be required: first, in an edition of a manuscript in which the editor wishes to present what has been called a 'genetic' text; that is, one that by a special construction provides within the text itself all the evidence for its growth and thus is without an apparatus; second, within an apparatus itself when another document provides the copy-text but an unreproduced underlying manuscript must be reconstructed by reference to the Historical Collation and a special list of Alterations in the Manuscript. In this second connection two main uses appear: (a) to transcribe passages of deleted or of variant matter of some length as part of an Alterations entry or else in a separate section of the apparatus devoted to transcripts of all deleted draft leaves and extraneous matter; (b) to solve the problem of a more condensed

form of description in a complex regular entry than can be managed by the usual verbal description.

Heretofore, 'genetic' texts have been produced by transcribing the original form of the manuscript and then indicating the series of its revisions directly after the revised word(s) by means of a number of arbitrary symbols like pointed brackets to the left or right, arrows, bars, and so on. This method was brought to a high state of refinement by the publication in 1962 of Melville's Billy Budd, edited by Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., which has since served as a general model for other manuscript texts. Despite the maximum compression gained by these symbols, the form of transcription is subject to certain difficulties: the symbols take considerable acquaintance before they can be read with any sort of ease and understanding, and this difficulty is compounded by the lack of any agreed standard for the use of these symbols; as a result, each subsequently edited manuscript has introduced different purposes for the same marks and freshly minted symbols preferred by its editor in an attempt at improvement on his predecessors, much to the confusion of the reader. Moreover, a genetic text of this sort cannot be read with ease (the difficulty of symbols apart), principally because the basic transcript is by necessity of the original unrevised inscription; hence the successive revisions that form the final text are encountered only as one plunges deep into the thicket of the arbitrary markings. It is difficult to read the original text consecutively; it is impossible to read the revised text at all in a coherent sequence. As a consequence, the editors of Billy Budd found it necessary to accompany the genetic reference text with a reading text that presented in usable form the finally revised version. A genetic text, in short, cannot be a reading edition except of a very lightly revised manuscript. It follows that an editor must make the basic decision, often, whether as in a genetic text his edition will be confined to the status of a reference work on which other editions will be built, or whether he will edit a reading text of the finally revised manuscript and in an apparatus detail by description and quoting, as necessary, the development of the final text from its original form. Since in either case a reader must work hard to reconstruct the other form, the matter may boil down to the general usefulness of having to hand the final revised text and to labor over the original, or vice versa.

For the purposes of the present paper, however, the problem centers chiefly on the method of transcription to employ when a manuscript must be reconstructed from the apparatus in cases where extensive transcription of rejected text or of text in the process of

revision is required. (Also in question is the method for transcribing, apart from the Alterations apparatus, deleted or discarded trials, drafts, and the like, that may accompany the final manuscript text.) The methodology of transcription does not differ in the system here proposed, no matter to what purpose it may be put, however: it is the same whether it is utilized for condensing an entry in an ordinary descriptive list of Alterations or for transcribing a revised document for reading and reference. In the latter case it may often serve as an acceptable compromise between a reading and a reference text.

The central feature of the system is that it transcribes the finally revised form of the text and within brackets placed after the appropriate words describes the changes made in this text from the original inscription. (The method of this description agrees with that illustrated above for use in an apparatus list of Alterations.) In a genetic text with arbitrary symbols one is forced to transcribe the original version since the symbols must be placed immediately after the word affected by revision and such placement is possible only with the original word, to which the revisions may then be appended. In descriptive transcription the convention of the asterisk frees the transcript of this necessity and effectively delimits even a considerable area of final text to be described. For instance, as illustrated, the first page of the manuscript of Chapter XIV of William James's Meaning of Truth (1909) is transcribable as follows:

This is complicated, but the revised text itself can be read simply by skipping all brackets; indeed, at some extra cost the legibility of the revised text could be increased by reducing the size of the type in all bracketed items, although this expedient might be imprudent in transcriptions within the apparatus list where ordinarily the type has been made as small as can be read without strain.

Several points need comment. First, all text intervening between the asterisk and the applicable bracketed description is covered by the description. Bracketed entries containing quoted words, as in notation of deletions or interlinings, may intervene without ambiguity between the start of the asterisked text and the applicable description, as in: *When, ['we' del.] for instance, we [ab. del. 'If we']. If an editor feels uneasy, he might, as in this example, reduce the size of these intervening brackets as is done in bracketed entries within bracketed entries. Morever, an asterisked passage may itself have an internal asterisked entry (which should be double asterisked), in which case the first small-bracketed description to appear applies to the internal double asterisk (and so on) and the final full-bracketed description to the whole of the material present between it and the original single asterisk. No example occurs in the transcript, but if we hear you were interlined above a deletion and that then interlined after hear, the text would read: *we hear **that [interl.] you [ab. del. 'it has come

to our attention']. If, instead, that had been a part of the original interlineation but had been deleted, then no asterisk would be needed: *we hear ['that' del.] you [ab. del. 'it has come to our attention']. In the transcript an example does appear, however, of double asterisked words within a bracketed description to an asterisked passage: *a new proposition, ['idea' del.] [ab. del. 'different from | from the one **whose truth is in question' [ab. del. 'originally believed, ['in,' del.]']].

It will be remarked in this example that idea (deleted) was the original interlineation and that a new proposition is the revised interlineation. There should also be no difficulty in perceiving that in the first inscription the deleted reading was originally believed in, and that a comma was added after believed when in, was first deleted before the decision was made to revise the whole phrase. No asterisk is needed if the description applies only to a single word following a bracketed description, since ambiguity could not then be present: was [interl.] he [ab. del. 'she'] aware. Independently deleted words may be given separate brackets: this ['great' del.] ['good' del.] noble man. But, as in the transcript's independently deleted idea proposition, the two can be included in the same bracketed notice: this ['great' del. 'good' del.] noble man (or in a descriptive entry): noble] aft. del. 'great ['good' del.]' (or, in another situation): this *noble [ab. del. 'great ['good' del.]'] man.

On the other hand, since there could scarcely be ambiguity about the deletion of a false start before a word that was later itself deleted, no very useful purpose is served by marking them as separately deleted, and the simple form would appear to be acceptable: All *of life's [ab. del. 'ro mental'] roads. Of course, if one wished to be scrupulous, one could write: All *of life's [ab. del. 'ro' del. 'mental'] roads (or preferably) [ab. del. '['ro' del.] mental'] roads.

As remarked, simple deletion is best handled by: is ['something' del.]. But when description must be added which applies to the deletion, the simplest order is: is ['something' del.] ['a' del. intrl.]. Another sequence might be used to clue the reader in earlier on the position when the deletion is a long one, and thus to prepare him for the final notation of deletion: [del. intrl. 'the four day working week has been tried in certain industries']. Preliminary warning is even more necessary in such cases as: [del. intrl. 'the four day working week has been tried in certain industries' ab. del. 'various experiments to promote leisure have been tried'], which is clearer than [intrl. 'the four day working week has been tried in certain industries' del. ab. del. 'various experiments to promote leisure have been tried'] and more satisfactory for indicating the position at the earliest moment than the conventional [del. 'the four day working week has been tried in certain industries' ab. del. 'various experiments to promote leisure have been tried'].

In an ordinary apparatus entry if the description quotes text that passes from one page to another, usually no purpose is served by noting the end of one page and the beginning of the next so long as the pages are in order: the reader has no opportunity to identify the page endings and beginnings in the edited text, anyway; thus in normal diplomatic transcripts (and always in edited text) no more significance inheres to passing from one page to another in the original document than from one line to the next. The case is altered, however, in the transcription in appendixes of discarded trials and the like, not as entries in the apparatus, or in the edition-text itself in a diplomatic transcript. Moreover, if the transcription in an apparatus entry continues not on the next page but on another that is not in order, although the text is continuous, notation of the difference in the page is necessary. When on folio 17 of the manuscript for Chapter XIV of The Meaning of Truth James deletes a sentence that begins on the last line and continues over onto folio 18, the distinction between the

deleted text on the two pages is superfluous. However, deleted text at the foot of folio 4 is continuous with deleted text beginning folio 10 as a consequence of a major revision and expansion of the deleted material that takes up folios 5-9. It would be most unhelpful to a reader to stop the transcription in the apparatus of this deletion with the end of folio 4, continue with normal entries for a considerable amount of text on fols. 5-9, and then when folio 10 was reached begin the broken-off deleted text as a fresh entry. Obviously, the whole passage must be transcribed as a unit since it is continuous text, no matter how separated, but an indication must be made at the proper point that the deleted text jumps from folio 4 to 10.

When the beginning of pages is being indicated within transcribed text, it is usually best to enclose the folio number for the new folio (or page) in square brackets after a vertical stroke at the point where the transition occurs: as Mr. Russell justly says, 'to | [fol. 2] settle the plain question . . . . In the example mentioned of a skip, the transcript

might read: He is a logician and a mathematician, accus-[end fol. 4 | begin fol. 10]tomed to think in complicated chains of identities. (Broken words on either side of a stroke are set close up; separate words are spaced.) In transcribing a manuscript when a sentence begins a new folio, the bracketed folio number may be placed on a separate line and the vertical stroke at the end of the text of the preceding sentence and page. An attempt to set the brackets before the sentence could be ambiguous, whether or not a paragraph were also present. Space may be saved by including the folio number within the text itself and running it on: to settle the plain question. | [fol. 92] This is a matter etc. If the text on the new folio begins with a paragraph, one may write in this form of continuous transcription: to settle the plain question. | [fol. 92] [¶] This is a matter etc. However, when a page begins with a new paragraph, or with something not continuous, like another item in a list written in separate lines, it is consistent with the rest of the transcript if a new page is indicated visually by the setting of the bracketed folio number in a separate line, the text then continuing below it: Of course, in transcription within an apparatus entry, the run-on notatation must be employed.

Descriptive transcription of underlined (italic) passages should put the bracketed description in roman instead of the customary italic for differentiation: *of believing which [intrl.] are good he [intrl. 'for instance' moved fr. aft. 'us' and del.] assumes us to mean . . . . Similarly, bracketed folio numbers intervening between italic text may be printed in roman.

In the apparatus to a complicated revision, descriptive transcription is sometimes necessary to reproduce a revised passage that, say, has been deleted or is a substitute for a deletion. The simplest case is exemplified by lengthy deletions to shorten text, or deletions at the heads or feet of pages accompanying major revision. As a consequence of the rewriting of folio 5 by a substitute leaf in James's Chapter XIV,

folio 6 begins with deleted text that has no antecedent. The record of this passage in the apparatus reads: Since this passage must appear in the apparatus, no separate listing of the variants can be managed, and descriptive transcription is a necessity.

Descriptive transcription can also clarify as well as condense descriptive entries of revisions. In the transcript above of folio 1 of James's Chapter XIV, the book-text reads a new proposition, quite but the final MS text is quite a new proposition,. A combination of description and quoting could be contrived to deal with the complex revision:

but this compromise, useful as it sometimes is, in this case yields in clarity and compression to straight descriptive transcription: In the first entry it would have been possible to refer the reader by a single dagger to the Historical Collation for the variant MS text, but the quoting of the MS text is here a preferred device to make an extended and complicated description immediately understandable within itself. Of course, in the second, full-fledged descriptive transcription no reference to the Historical Collation need be contemplated since the transcription automatically provides the MS text.

The book-text continues shortly and is, moreover, a fact usually very hard to verify, it being "far easier," as Mr. Russell justly says, "to settle the plain question of fact:. A series of separate entries could be contrived to deal with the MS variants in this stretch:

If an editor chose, these separate facts could be combined into one descriptive entry pretty much as they are in separate entries; however, descriptive transcription would be much clearer and shorter: This example may serve as a good illustration of the way in which it is possible to do away with a series of short entries in favor of one transcript.

At 151.4 James wrote we must but then deleted must before continuing need to stay. Later, he deleted we and interlined one above it, and added a final s to original need. The need for flexibility in the choice of constructing an entry is shown by the following four options:

The first (straight descriptive transcription) takes about 65 ens to set; the second, a mixture of description and descriptive transcription, requires about 64 ens; the third and fourth, similar mixtures, take about 56 and 52 ens respectively. The compression of the last is gained by the omission of needs from the lemma as not strictly required. Economy suggests a choice either of the third or fourth.

In the next sentence James first wrote comes from making (the m of making written over some letter that just possibly may be an a). First he deleted making and interlined carrying; he then deleted comes from and interlined is the but deleted this is the and added before it occurs when we, necessarily then deleting the final ing of carrying. Two separate entries are possible:

However, in this case the two entries can profitably be combined into a single descriptive transcript: The rest of the alterations for this page (see the illustration) can be given as examples of fairly typical entries in a list of Alterations: