I
What I am calling a debate about historicism has chiefly engaged the
editors of writings by literary figures, not the editors of statesmen's papers
and other historical documents. The reason is that the debate is primarily
concerned with critical editions, in which the principles underlying an
editor's emendations determine how far the critical text departs from the
documentary text[4] that served as its
basis. Historians[5] have not generally
dealt with these issues because the material they have typically edited
consists of letters, journals, and other similar manuscripts, which are more
likely to call for literal transcription than critical emendation. For them, the
issue of historicism in editing is apt to be whether eclectic texts (products
of critical editing) can ever be preferred to diplomatic transcriptions of
single documentary texts. Even though many historical editors have
practiced critical editing in the
sense that they have normalized or regularized certain features of their
texts, and have not simply produced diplomatic transcriptions, many of
them have not been able to see the value of the further step that literary
editors have often taken when dealing with multiple texts of a single work,
the step of emending one text with variants from another. Not having
progressed beyond this elementary stage in the process of thinking about
editing, they have not been in a position to enter into the more sophisticated
discussions of historicism in critical editing. It is an unfortunate fact that
what historians have published on the subject of editing has not contributed
to the development of editorial theory.[6]
Just prior to the period under review here, in September of 1978, a
Conference on Literary and Historical Editing was held at the University
of Kansas, under the joint sponsorship of the National Endowment for the
Humanities and the National Historical Publications and Records
Commission. That such a conference took place was encouraging, for it was
the first organized effort to open the lines of communication between
literary and historical editors.[7] But
the title of the conference, like the title of the 1981 volume collecting some
of the conference papers, Literary & Historical Editing
(edited by George L. Vogt and John Bush Jones), was misguided in
suggesting that the nature of editing shifts at disciplinary boundaries
(assuming they can be located). It is perhaps permissible, if not very
felicitous, to speak—in convenient short-hand—of "literary
editors" and
"historical editors," when referring to the editors who deal with the
writings of literary[8] and historical
figures; but it is surely illogical to speak of "literary editing" and "historical
editing," as if differences in editing arise more from the subjects involved
than from the kinds of materials. Letters pose similar problems, if they are
from the same period and country, whether they are written by statesmen
or by novelists;[9] and works
published in a series of editions pose a different set of problems, regardless
of whether the author is a politician or a poet. I endeavored to make this
point in my contribution: although it was entitled "Literary Editing" (pp.
35-56) because that was the assigned topic, it explained that the real
distinction is between writings of the kind normally intended for publication
and those of the kind normally not so intended (critical editions often being
most appropriate for the former, diplomatic transcriptions for the latter).
Blurring this distinction
in the title and organization of the conference was effectively to discourage
participants from recognizing the extent of their shared concerns.
The paper that represented "historical editing"—at the
conference
and in the volume—set forth a viewpoint, largely through
implication,
that has not yet died out from its own illogic and therefore must be glanced
at here. George C. Rogers, Jr., entitled his paper "The Sacred Text: An
Improbable Dream" (pp. 23-33) and seemed by the title to be implying that
too much attention can be paid to texts, an interpretation borne out by his
reaction to an essay of mine: "The text, the text, it is always the text!" (p.
33). One gathers that he believes textual details to be less important for
historical than for literary scholars, for he seems to think that the former
deal with ideas (and are presumably above such minutiae), whereas the
latter deal with language. This astonishing position (which, I hasten to add,
Rogers is not alone in holding) is apparently what underlies his statement
that the "work to preserve the words of the founding fathers . . . provides
us with an understanding of our republic," whereas "the work to find out
what Shakespeare himself had to say" provides us "with an understanding
of our language" (p.
27). On this basis, presumably, he can report with approval that the texts
in the
Papers of Henry Laurens incorporate silent alterations
to
increase "readability"—dashes, for example, are deleted "unless it
is
obvious that they should be retained as they would be in modern writing,"
and commas are added "only when the editors are sure that the addition will
clarify the meaning of a passage" (p. 29). More important to him than
offering a record of such alterations is the provision of historical annotation,
for a textual apparatus "tends to confine thinking to the text at hand" (mere
language, that is), but annotation "tends to release thinking in a thousand
new directions" (p. 31). The connection between nuances of language
(including punctuation) and nuances of thought is not made, and thus there
is no recognition of the fact (which follows from it) that textual details are
of equal importance to all who wish to read with the fullest understanding,
regardless of the nature
of the writings to be read. Much of Rogers's paper—after an
introductory
section explaining incorrectly what literary editors do
[10] —sets forth the practices of
the
Laurens edition, as an example of what historical editors do. But nothing
in that account explains how the "work to preserve the words of the
founding fathers" (or other historical figures) is furthered by concealing
certain details of the manuscripts (and depriving readers of the opportunity
to arrive at their own evaluations of the significance of those details);
[11] nor is any coherent rationale
offered for
preferring annotation, however stimulating, to information about the words
and punctuation of the text itself, the text presumably being the reason for
the existence of the edition.
[12]
Rogers's Kansas paper makes no contribution to editorial thinking
nor—unfortunately, given the occasion for which it was
prepared—to
the promotion of mutual understanding among editors in different
fields.[13] Resuscitating it here is no
doubt unkind; but its essential position, however ineptly set out in this
instance, continues to be argued. Two years later, at the Williamsburg
conference of the Association for Documentary Editing (which had been
founded a few weeks after the Kansas conference, with the same goals),
Robert J. Taylor still found alterations for the sake of readability to take
precedence over the presentation
of literal transcriptions.
[14] He claims
that the inclusion in the edited text of "inconsequential" authorial deletions,
"incomprehensible" authorial punctuation, and "superfluous" authorial
dashes "could well annoy a modern reader" and that "reader annoyance
itself could block the reader from sensing a writer's mood" (p. 5). It does
not seem to have occurred to him that any serious reader will be more
annoyed by an editor's officiousness in withholding documentary evidence
and will find incredible the idea that the "burden of proof" should be on
those who introduce no alterations rather than on those who do.
[15] Curiously, Taylor presents an
excellent
statement explaining why anyone who is bothered by unfamiliar or
inconsistent spelling and punctuation reveals thereby "an unhistorical
attitude"—for he does not see that this point demolishes his own
argument. He proceeds to say that "slavish copying" can sometimes "get in
the way of the meaning of the words and the spirit of the document" and
that the "main objective" is "the illumination of history" (p. 6). We thus
come back to the same basic misunderstanding that was present in Rogers's
paper, but Taylor is more explicit: "the aesthetic interest is central in the
study of literary documents," whereas the "overriding concern" in the study
of historical documents is "their contribution to the understanding of
history" (p. 6); therefore "the principle of the sanctity of the text" is "not
necessary for many, perhaps most, of the documents that an historical
editor works with" (p. 7). Aesthetics has nothing to do with the issue, of
course; what is being missed here is the simple fact that a careful reading
of any piece of writing involves attention to details of wording and
punctuation, whether or not the writer is generally considered to be an
effective user of the language.
[16]
Those inclined to agree with the views expressed by Rogers and
Taylor often make a further point, which in fact renders their brand of
historicism rather paradoxical. They are likely to disapprove of eclectic
texts on the grounds—as Taylor puts it—that such texts have
"no
historical validity," not having "a real existence" and not
representing "what was" (p. 7). Wayne Cutler has concisely stated this
position by saying that "the historical editor speaks only for one document
at a time"; "conflation," he says, "breaks down the time factor that is so
important in linking written witnesses to particular past events."[17] These editors therefore put
themselves in
the peculiar position of saying that one loses the evidentiary value of
individual documents by any conflation of the texts of two or more of them
but that certain kinds of editorial alteration within the texts of single
documents are permissible, and indeed can even assist readers in
seeing the historical significance of those documents. An additional irony
is that the editors who produce eclectic texts generally provide records of
variants and emendations (thus recognizing the importance of documentary
evidence), whereas those who favor individual documentary texts often
(especially in the field of history) furnish no detailed records of their
normalizations (thus suggesting a less rigorous concern with such evidence).
But the issue should not be how important documentary evidence is:
obviously it is fundamental, whether or not one decides to take the next step
and make critical use of that evidence. Some editors who do not wish to
take that step, however, are not willing to think about its potential
usefulness. The result is the sad spectacle of scholars
asserting—sometimes with a touch of pride—their own
closed-mindedness. Cutler unfortunately serves as an example:
To what uses literary critics may put bastard documents is for them
to say, but the saying of the same will not likely change the historical
discipline's rules of evidence and citation. I am far from being convinced
that a common definition of terms would inform our dissimilar approaches
to editing, for it may well be the case that on the subject of methodology
we have little of consequence to exchange. (p. 9)
It would be a great misfortune if editorial discussion were to stall for long
at this level.
Yet attempts to deal with the supposed differences between
"historical"
and "literary" editing persist in getting off the track. An egregious instance
is Claire Badaracco's proposal for a paper for the first conference (1981)
of the Society for Textual Scholarship.
[18] One can readily concur in her
dissatisfaction with the use of the words "historical" and "literary" to
designate two kinds of editing, but it is hard to see what is gained by her
substitution of "documentary" and "textual," based on "principles emerging
from one's philosophical stance in relation to the problem of VALUE" (p.
43). When she explains that "textual" editors
[19] value "the author's intention,"
whereas for
"documentary" editors "it is not the text but the document itself which is of
the greatest value" (p. 42), she is merely perpetuating a misguided
approach, adding to it some new confusions. Her piece would not be worth
mentioning except that it elicited from Fredson Bowers a splendid reply,
which in memorable fashion
cuts through to the heart of the whole question and says what needs to be
said. Naturally the reporting of evidence is central. Bowers concisely makes
the essential criticism of historical editors' common practice of omitting any
record of the authorial deletions and revisions present in the texts of the
documents being transcribed: "All one can ask is, Is this documentary?" (p.
65).
[20] These editors, he notes, have
repeatedly "turned a blind eye to the superior possibilities for the
transmission of information that have come to characterize the new school
of editing making its way in the humanities" (p. 49). The emphasis is on
the "possibilities for the transmission of information," not on the nature of
the edited text, since "for the purposes of historical interpreters it may be
moot whether an eclectic conflated text made up from multiple authorities
is better suited than a transcript of a single document, provided
in
both cases an apparatus
records the variants" (p. 66). Critical editors, Bowers rightly insists, place
just as much value on documentary evidence as diplomatic editors do, but
the kind of edition they generally construct, containing both a critical text
and an apparatus, meets the varying interests of different audiences and
releases the editor from being "the victim of the requirements of only one
segment of an audience"
(p. 73). Bowers's essay—as this brief summary of a few key points
suggests—deserves a wide readership among those who have had
suspicions about the scholarly seriousness of critical editors in the field of
literature and who have not been able to see that all who deal with texts
confront the same problems. The observations he makes are in fact
self-evident, as he several times suggests; but past debate does not give one
grounds for hope that they will be soon understood, in spite of his effective
statement to ease the way.
Even David Hall, who is particularly interested in the history of
books and reading, found it possible in his 1983 Wiggins Lecture to refer
sarcastically to "the work of analytical bibliographers and their holy of
holies, the text."[21] The depth of his
misunderstanding is revealed by his further saying, "The very concept of
a perfect text is an invention of the twentieth century, and cannot be
imposed upon the past" (p. 335).[22]
Students of the history of reading and of the role of books in society are
rightly interested in the texts available to readers at particular times in the
past; but so are students of the history of literature, and no critical editor
of a literary text would pretend that a newly constructed critical text (as
opposed to its apparatus) would be appropriate for analyzing earlier readers'
reactions.[23] Whether historians are
in fact as concerned with past texts as they
ought to be is a question one cannot avoid raising, if Rogers's exasperated
exclamation "always the text!" and Hall's slighting reference to "holy of
holies" are at all representative of a common feeling. The truth of the
matter is that, because analytical bibliography developed primarily among
literary scholars, many historians have not yet come to understand the
lessons it has taught about the role of physical evidence in uncovering
textual problems (lessons relevant to the study of manuscripts as well as of
printed books) and therefore have not recognized that the task of identifying
"the text" read at a given time is often more complicated than the simple
location of a single copy. Indeed, the growing numbers of historians
interested in what is often referred to
(following the lead of the French in this field) as
histoire du
livre, dealing with books in their broadest social contexts, have
surprisingly often failed to see how important analytical bibliography and
textual study are for their endeavors.
[24]
Despite extensive discussion of these matters in recent years,
encouraged in part by the activities of two organizations devoted to
fostering interdisciplinary communication among scholarly editors, the split
between literary and historical editors regarding the responsible handling of
historical evidence has not grown significantly smaller. That so much
energy has been invested in debating such elementary—such
essentially
undebatable—points is regrettable; there are, after all, real issues
waiting
to be further explored. No one doubts the importance of making
transcriptions or reproductions of the texts of certain individual documents
(both manuscript and printed); and it seems scarcely credible that anyone
would question the desirability, in connection with such transcriptions or
reproductions, of reporting as much as possible of the textual evidence
those documents contain.[25] Similarly
undebatable, one would think, is the idea that in certain
instances a further usefulness might result from the production of a text
embodying alterations made at the editor's discretion[26] (with the alterations recorded).[27] Both literary and historical editors
acknowledge this point, but some do so only in a limited way. Many editors
who disapprove of eclectic texts nevertheless produce critical texts, for they
make certain kinds of alterations, aimed at bringing a text to what in their
judgment is a higher standard (whether of readability, mechanical
correctness, correspondence to the author's intention, or something else).
Any editor who normalizes or modernizes
a documentary text is obviously engaging in critical editing, for the
resulting text departs from all the historical witnesses through the operation
of the editor's critical judgment. Some of these editors balk at the idea of
drawing any of their alterations from another text of the same piece of
writing, labeling such a practice "eclectic" and charging that it destroys the
integrity of individual documents. But that integrity has already been
violated by the editor's own intrusions; "eclecticism" only alludes to a
particular source of such violation. No one would argue that editors have
any obligation to produce eclectic texts when they find such texts
inappropriate; but surely editors who understand the usefulness of even one
kind of departure from absolute fidelity to a documentary text can also
conceive of the usefulness, under some circumstances, of such eclectic
texts. Whatever the field, scholars must engage in interpretation of the raw
materials of history, and eclectic texts
are one product of such interpretation.
[28] Literary scholars may have more
occasions for producing them than scholars in other fields; but it seems
inconceivable that any scholar can fail to comprehend the rationale for and
function of such texts. Yet that is precisely what much of the argument has
been about. We are not talking here about which materials are most
appropriate for eclectic treatment or what the principles for emendation
ought to be but simply whether eclectic texts can ever be justified as
historical scholarship. Clearly they can be: critical (including eclectic) texts
have a place in the scholar's repertory as surely as diplomatic texts do. And
in either case the scholar has an obligation to report the details of the
documentary evidence. On this level, there is nothing to debate.
