University of Virginia Library

III

The decryption of written or printed signs (graphemes) on the basis of linguistic convention is a definition for the process of reading. The signs fall under the Peircean category of symbol. A thorough analysis of the meaning and significance of such signs in certain kinds of documents (especially those which convey imaginary information) is the primary activity of the professional reader or literary critic.

Sign decryption in the field of analytical bibliography, on the other hand, is quite different since, to begin with, it is not accomplished on the basis of linguistic convention.

Although it is unlikely that Professor Bowers had in mind the Peircean concept of "symbolic meaning," his explanation nevertheless coincides neatly with the semiotic distinctions outlined above. It is not that the inked shapes on the page have no meaning in analytical bibliography, but rather that they indeed have no symbolic, i.e. verbal meaning. They do, however, constitute a sign system—or at least part of one—and they do consequently transmit meaning for the analytical bibliographer (otherwise there would be little point in his study of them). Both the bibliographer and the reader, therefore, assign separate referents, i.e. separate meanings, to essentially the same set of signs.[27]

If the reader, then, accomplishes sign decryption on the basis of linguistic convention, how is essentially the same set of signs decrypted by the analytical bibliographer? "Analytical bibliography concentrates on the examination of books as tangible objects in order to recover the details of the physical process of their manufacture."[28] In other words, the purpose of analytical bibliography is to establish, through intensive examination and with the assistance of previously gathered information on techniques of book production (historical bibliography), how a particular document (or set of documents) came physically to be the way it is. That is the essential function of analytical bibliography.[29] The relationship between the sign and its referent is for the analytical bibliographer causal. Thus signs which from the standpoint of the reader are symbolic, must be understood by the analytical bibliographer to be indexical.

Let us now turn to enumerative bibliography. The enumerative bibliographer is traditionally concerned with the intellectual content of publications.[30] Yet again: our purpose here is to establish the precise relationship of enumerative bibliography to a sign system constituting a document. We must do this in order to obtain an exact definition, for to define enumerative bibliography as, for example, "primarily concerned with the ideas in books and their circulation among men"[31] is to fail to note those characteristics which render its activities unique and distinct from all others. Does the enumerative bibliographer, then, like the reader, indeed view a text as a set of symbolic signs, the decryption of which depends upon linguistic convention? Yes and no. Clearly the enumerative bibliographer must understand the verbal content of the text, yet while this is the essential function of reading, it is only a means to accomplish the essential function of enumerative bibliography, namely the production of "a list of books arranged according to some permanent principle."[32] It is therefore reasonable to maintain that ultimately the enumerative bibliographer does not view the document as a sign system but rather as a set of referents to which a sign system of his own

generation, i.e. his bibliography, is to refer. This is admittedly a difficult point, but it is valid. The reader is concerned about what the verbal signs in the text signify. The enumerative bibliographer is rather concerned only that they signify concepts which fall within the confines of the "permanent principle" upon which his selection of documents is based (although obviously in order to accomplish this he must be aware of what they verbally signify). The essential activity of the enumerative bibliographer, then, involves in all cases the generation of what we might call "meta-signs," that is to say signs which specifically signify other signs. And what, finally, is the relationship of enumerative bibliography as sign system to its Object, i.e. to the documents it lists? "Les répertoires [bibliographiques] imprimés depuis le XVe siècle, qui se comptent aujourd'hui par dizaines de milliers, sont des nomenclatures de textes, également imprimés."[33] Bibliographies are "printed" works listing "printed" works. Their purpose, and the purpose of enumerative bibliography in general, is duplication or representation. This is not to say that enumerative bibliography is not a creative discipline. It is very much so: its creativity is, however, restricted to the origination of meta-sign systems and their subsequent coordination (i.e. classification according to the "permanent principle"), and does not involve the relationship of the meta-signs qua signs to their referents. An enumerative bibliography reproduces its Object in microcosm; it is a reflection, a picture of its Object. As such, the relationship between sign and referent in enumerative bibliography is one of similarity and may consequently be designated iconic.[34]

This most essential feature of enumerative bibliography is clearly visible in all areas of that field. The purpose of subject bibliography, for example, is to provide a relatively concise representation of an individual subject through the abbreviated duplication of some or all of its constituent documentation. Part of this duplicating or representational process may consist of what are traditionally known as annotations. Hibberd's "text-as-text" versus "text-as-content," and "external description" versus "internal description" (p. 131) are valid and useful distinctions,

yet only inside the sphere of iconic sign systems. A description of the contents of a publication—which is the function of most annotations—remains at its most basic level an (often difficult) exercise in duplication. That is the essential relationship between enumerative bibliography and the document. Since every document is itself a sign system, and since every sign system involves "something" standing for "something else," it is only natural that efforts are made not only to duplicate certain signs contained in a document but also to represent certain parts of the meaning for which certain signs stand. "External description" tends to reproduce signs, "internal description" tends to reproduce referents. The point is in any case that enumerative bibliography does not create new content but rather duplicates (re-presents) content which already exists.[35]

If the relationship of the signs of an enumerative bibliography to their referents defines such signs as essentially iconic, the relationship of the signs of a descriptive bibliography to their referents must be the same, only more so. The function of descriptive bibliography—whether comprehensive or degressive—is to duplicate certain portions (Hibberd would say "external" portions) of documents with great precision. The call for the use of photographic processes to aid description is indicative.[36] Even if the ultimate purpose of the activity is understood to be the description of an ideal copy, moreover, the relationship of the description to its Object is none the less one of duplication, for its Object consists of certain features of a document as the printer intended them to appear. It is a central quality of the icon that "it affords no assurance that there is any such thing in nature [i.e. its referent]. But it is of the utmost value for enabling its interpreter to study what would be the character of such an object in case any such could exist" (Peirce, IV,359). Any elementary book on physics will normally contain a diagram of an atom, even though no one (yet) has ever seen one distinctly. The diagram is rather a representation of how an atom should appear on the basis of all currently available evidence. The description of an ideal copy is a similar effort to represent the characteristics of an entity not itself subject to autopsy.[37]

It is time, then, to reject the view that there is a generic difference between enumerative and descriptive bibliography. The difference is quantitative only. This is clear from many formulations made by Professor Bowers:

Both enumerative and descriptive bibliography, moreover, rely on analytical bibliography, although it would probably be most accurate to state that enumerative bibliography does or should rely on the results of analytical bibliography, while descriptive bibliography relies on its techinques. It is obviously impossible to produce a descriptive bibliography without an analytical study of the various conditions of the documents described. Yet analysis and description are nevertheless two entirely separate operations: in the former the document is treated as a product of certain mechanical procedures, in the latter the document (in its various conditions) is approached as a set of representable characteristics—a raw material—from which a product, the description, is to be created. This latter treatment of the document is, at this general level of categorization, identical to that of enumerative bibliography.

Another point used to differentiate enumerative from descriptive bibliography is that the latter should be confined to the description of primary works.[38] There appears, however, to be no reason to preclude the application of Professor Bowers' excellent system of description to secondary works as well, always assuming, of course, that the result justifies the effort. The designations "primary" and "secondary" are, in any case, relative. The Life of Samuel Johnson may be either primary or secondary, depending on whether it is being regarded from the standpoint of Johnson or Boswell.

One value of the original distinction between enumerative and descriptive bibliography was that it emphasized the degree of precision possible in bibliographic description. That was a point well worth making and a point well made, but the time eventually comes when categories introduced with the best of didactic or polemical intentions outlive their usefulness and begin to impede the progress of the discipline

they were originally designed to promote. When that point is reached, such categories must be discarded and replaced by others more reflective of actual conditions.

It would be comfortable to stop here—to sit back and complacently view the symmetry. Once we have embarked upon a particular analytical route, however, we are obliged by the requirement for consistency to continue upon that route until we arrive at its ultimate conclusion. And the ultimate conclusion is this: if the relationship of enumerative bibliography to its Object does indeed involve the reproduction of portions of that Object, and if that of descriptive bibliography is the same only with greater precision and in greater detail, then there must be a final level of such a representational relationship at which the goal is to reproduce the Object with maximum precision and in every detail. The name we give to the discipline practiced at that level is, of course, textual criticism. That is to say, then, that the activity of textual criticism, by virtue of its most elementary function—the reproduction with the greatest possible accuracy of sign systems which either once actually existed or which were intended to exist—can and must be described as the concentration of the essential representational activity of enumerative and descriptive bibliography onto a single, total document. The only difference, at this level of basic definition, between the citation of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus in the NCBEL, its description in Greg's A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, and its reproduction in the textual portion of Greg's 1950 critical edition of the play, is the degree to which the document is duplicated.

This conclusion may be underscored somewhat by recalling that the relationship between textual criticism and reading is practically identical to that noted above between reading and enumerative bibliography. Reading provides a means to carry out the operations of textual criticism, but it does not constitute the essential characteristics which distinguish textual criticism from all other activities. Once again: while the reader uses sign systems to arrive at verbal meaning, the textual critic uses verbal meaning derived through the process of reading as an assistance to arrive at the proper representation of the sign system.

Textual criticism, like descriptive bibliography, draws heavily upon analytical bibliography as well. It is now a fairly well accepted premise (at least in Anglo-American scholarship) that any literary critic who relies on a text produced without the assistance of analytical bibliography will sooner or later end up criticizing soiled fish. The application of analytical bibliography to textual criticism is indeed so fundamental that a name has actually been coined for it: textual bibliography. Two

remarks must be made on this term, one concerning its nature, the other its effect. First, textual bibliography is not—or at least not yet—a discipline in itself: the term rather signifies the application of one discipline to another (what we will later designate an "efficient relationship"). As such it can have no place in any strict taxonomy of bibliographic disciplines. Second, introduction of the term has tended to re-enforce the notion that analytical bibliography and textual criticism are generically related.[39] Such a notion is typical of inaccuracies which can arise when activities are defined on the basis of their relationship with each other rather than first on the basis of their relationship with their Objects. Textual criticism is far more closely related as an activity to descriptive (or even enumerative) bibliography than to analytical bibliography, for like descriptive bibliography it views its Object essentially as a set of representable signs from which a product—a critical edition—is to be fashioned (always assuming, of course, that we equate textual criticism with editing). This is an entirely separate activity from approaching the document as a set of signs to be decrypted, which is the essential function of analytical bibliography.

By its very nature bibliography is a highly conservative field and reevaluation of established definitions and categories is perhaps not as welcome as it is elsewhere. It should be noted, however, that a definition of bibliography in the sense of the iconic constellation of "enumerative bibliography—descriptive bibliography—textual criticism" (hereafter: "EDT") as a reduplicative sign system is, from one point of view at least, a very conservative one, for it reflects the original meaning of the word quite closely. βιβλιογραøια means "the writing of books," not in the modern sense of "authoring" but in the literal, physical sense, i.e. duplication by means of written signs. A βιβλιογραøοζ is a scribe or copiest, so that to define certain forms of bibliography in terms of their function of reproducing all or part of selected texts is hardly to change the original meaning of the word at all.

We are left now only with the problem of historical bibliography. Professor Bowers' most precise definitions are found in his Encyclopaedia Britannica article. There he does not consider historical bibliography as properly belonging to the field, but states instead: "Ancillary to analytical bibliography . . . are the numerous fields concerned with the study of printing and its processes both as art and as craft" (p. 588). One must agree that historical bibliography is not, properly speaking,

bibliography at all. This is because it does not have as its Object material sign systems or documents. Its Object rather consists primarily of certain mechanical techniques and as such it must be considered not part of bibliography but a constitutent of such fields as the history of technology or, perhaps, information science. Its relationship to analytical bibliography, moreover, is frequently somewhat similar to the relationship of language to reading: historical bibliography often provides the causal basis for sign decryption in analytical bibliography just as language provides the conventional basis for sign decryption in reading.

Let us return now to the subject of analytical bibliography and summarize the semiotic basis for its isolation.

a. the sign: while many (but by no means all) of the signs considered by the analytical bibliographer have the same form (i.e. inked shapes on paper) as those considered by the reader, they invariably have a different referent or meaning. For the analytical bibliographer they do not equate to mental images but rather to activities of those responsible for the production of the document. This distinguishes analytical bibliography from reading.

b. the referent: the essential activity of analytical bibliography involves the acceptance of the Object as a closed set of signs which require decryption. It does not approach the document as a referent for which a new set of signs (what we have called "meta-signs") is to be generated. This distinguishes analytical bibliography from EDT.

c. the relationship of the sign to the referent: in analytical bibliography the sign is related to its referent on the basis of physical causality, not on the basis of similarity or convention. The relationship in Peircean terminology is consequently indexical rather than iconic or symbolic. This distinguishes analytical bibliography from both EDT and reading.