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The author's intention
The author's intention, as is well known, is a fundamental concept much debated in editorial theory.[29] By and large it seems that, despite the problems involved, it cannot be relinquished without negative consequences for critical editing. If it were renounced, if editors were to declare the very concept of authorial intention on principle to be outside their province, discernible expression of such intention would be entirely subject to editorial discretion, if not indeed arbitrariness.[30] Too little consideration however has usually been given to the fact that the notion of authorial intention can be applied in two different ways: as intentio recta (author in the 2nd person) and as intentio obliqua (author
Editorially, the predicate "intended" may on principle be attributed to a specific textual finding or its emendation only when modified as "possibly intended".[31] Yet the "possibility" is subject to many degrees of certainty and probability or uncertainty and improbability, in much the same way as what a third party intends (or means) can only be known on the basis of everyday suppositions. The editor assumes responsibility for adjudicating intention in a manner different from that for his making descriptive statements which can be verified or falsified from the extant textual materials. Whereas the reasoning behind descriptive statements can be completely objectified, if need be with the help of explicit conceptual definitions and rules of procedure, this is not the case with assertions of textual criticism concerning the degree to which a transmitted text can be intended (meant). These are always only partly objectifiable, and the editor can only vouch for them on the basis of an understanding and knowledge which he has gained in his role as reader, interpreter and textual critic. Hence they always hold good only in relation to the editor's familiarity with the author's voluntative and linguistic behaviour.[32]
Whereas editorial theory has hitherto been dominated by the reciprocal editor/author relationship in the 1st and 2nd person—the reception-oriented editorial concept—or the one-directional editor/author relationship in the 1st and 3rd person—the production-oriented concept—the implications of the notion of authorial intention may be clarified from a perspective in which the author occupies the 2nd and 3rd person. The author's literary activity displays two sides: on the one hand it fulfills a specific purpose, the production of texts, and on the other hand it is a form of expression, a way of articulating the self in the text. The concept of authorial intention may be differentiated accordingly.
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