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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.