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Notes
This essay is the revised version of a contribution for the Symposium on Textual Criticism and Editing held in Charlottesville, Va., from 20th to 23rd April 1985. A version in German has appeared in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 105 (1986), Sonderheft: Editionsprobleme der Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Nobert Oellers and Hartmut Steinecke, pp. 4-42, under the title "Deutungen literarischer Arbeitsweise." The present translation is by Rose Lord and Hans Walter Gabler.
Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship. From the Beginnings to the End of Hellenism. Oxford, 1968; History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850. Oxford, 1976. Pfeiffer's work has recently been supplemented by Anthony Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship. Oxford, 1983.
Sebastiano Timpanaro, Die Entstehung der Lachmannschen Methode. Second expanded and revised edition. Hamburg, 1971. (Authorised translation by Dieter Irmer of the original Italian version La genesi del metodo del Lachmann. Florence, 1963.)—Karl Stackmann, "Die klassische Philologie und die Anfänge der Germanistik." In: Philologie und Hermeneutik im 19. Jahrhundert. Zur Geschichte und Methodologie der Geisteswissenschaften, ed. Hellmut Flashar, Karlfried Gründer, Axel Horstmann. Göttingen, 1979; pp. 240-259.
First printed in Deutsche Rundschau 58 (1889), 360-375; reprinted in Wilhelm Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 15, ed. Ulrich Herrmann, Göttingen, 1970; pp. 1-16.
Wilhelm Dilthey, "Beiträge zum Studium der Individualität." In: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, ed. Georg Misch, Göttingen, 1924; p. 245.
Cf. Louis Hay, "La critique génétique: origines et perspectives." In: Essais de critique génétique. Paris, 1979; pp. 227-236. Louis Hay, "Die dritte Dimension der Literatur. Notizen zu einer 'critique génétique'." Poetica 16 (1984), 307-323. Louis Hay, "Le texte n'existe pas. Réflexions sur la critique génétique." Poétique 62 (1985), 147-158. (An English version of this essay is contained in the present volume.)
Michael Werner, "Génèse et histoire: Quelques rémarques sur la dimension historique de la démarche génétique." In: Leçons d'écriture. Ce que disent les manuscrits. Textes réunis par Almuth Grésillon et Michael Werner en hommage à Louis Hay. Paris, 1985; p. 282.
Cf. Michael Werner, "Génèse et histoire", pp. 284-285; Henri Mitterand, "Avantpropos." P. vii in: Leçons d'écriture (note 11).
Raymonde Debray-Genette, "Génétique et poétique: le cas Flaubert." In: Essais de critique génétique (note 7), p. 28; cf. also Michael Werner, "Génèse et histoire", p. 293.
Cf. Essais de critique génétique (note 7); and Almuth Grésillon et Jean-Louis Lebrave, "Les manuscrits comme lieu de conflits discursifs." In: La génèse du texte: les modèles linguistiques. Paris, 1982 (Textes et Manuscrits); pp. 129-175; and Leçons d'écriture (note 11).
Goethes Werke, hg. im Auftrage der Grossherzogin Sophie von Sachsen. Abt. 1, Band 1. Weimar, 1887, p. xxiv (subsequently cited as WA).—Cf. Handbuch der Editionen. Deutschsprachige Schriftsteller. Ausgang des 15. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. Compiled by Waltraud Hagen, Inge Jensen, Edith Nahler, Horst Nahler. München, 1979. (Veröffentlichung des Zentralinstituts für Literaturgeschichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR.); pp. 183-187 (subsequently cited as Handbuch der Editionen).
This attitude is evident in the treatment of the "Paralipomena," especially the overall work plans. They are often not reproduced as witness documents in their own right, but only to the extent that they contain draft sketches of individual works or work segments.—Cf. Goethe, Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit. Historischkritische Ausgabe, bearbeitet von Siegfried Scheibe, hg. von der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR, vol. 2, pp. 661-666.—Handbuch der Editionen, p. 187.
Cf. Heinrich Düntzer's first review in Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 23 (1891), 294-349.—Ernst Grumach, "Probleme der Goethe-Ausgabe." In: Das Institut für Deutsche Sprache und Literatur. Vorträge, gehalten auf der Eröffnungstagung 1954. Berlin, 1954. (Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache und Literatur, 1.), pp. 39-51, esp. pp. 46-49.
Friedrich Beissner, "Editionsmethoden der neueren deutschen Philologie." Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 83 (1964) (Sonderheft), 73-74.
Variants were even reported from editions irrelevant to the constitution of the text. WA I, 1, p. xxv: "Pedantic uniformity has not in the least been our aim."
Ernst Grumach, "Probleme", p. 47; cf. also his "Prolegomena zu einer Goethe-Ausgabe." In: Beiträge zur Goetheforschung, ed. E. Grumach. Berlin, 1959 (Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache und Literatur, 16), pp. 1-34.
Friedrich Beissner emphasizes the distinction in "Editionsmethoden", pp. 73-76; cf. also his "Einige Bemerkungen über den Lesartenapparat zu Werken neuerer Dichter." In: Orbis Litterarum. Supplementum II: Théories et Problèmes. Copenhagen, 1958, pp. 5-20.
For recent contributions to the discussion, see Hans Zeller, "Struktur und Genese in der Editorik. Zur germanistischen und anglistischen Editionsforschung." In: LiLi. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 5 (1975), H. 19/20 Edition und Wirkung, ed. W. Haubrichs, pp. 113-114; G. Thomas Tanselle, "The Editorial Problem of Final Authorial Intention." Studies in Bibliography 29 (1976), 176-211; J. McLaverty, "The Concept of Authorial Intention in Textual Criticism." The Library 6 (1984), 121-138.
Cf. G. Thomas Tanselle, "Recent Editorial Discussion and the Central Questions of Editing." SB 34 (1981), 57.
For a critical appraisal of the editorial applicability of the concept "authorial intention" cf. Hans Zeller, "Befund und Deutung." In: Texte und Varianten. Probleme ihrer Edition und Interpretation, ed. Gunter Martens and Hans Zeller. München, 1971, pp. 54-56; Hans Zeller, "Struktur und Genese", (note 29); Siegfried Scheibe, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien einer historisch-kritischen Ausgabe." In: Texte und Varianten, pp. 42-44; Siegfried Scheibe, "Zum editorischen Problem des Textes." Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 101 (1982), Sonderheft: Probleme neugermanistischer Edition, ed. Norbert Oellers and Hartmut Steinecke, pp. 25-28; Gerhard Seidel, Die Funktions- und Gegenstandsbedingtheit der Edition untersucht an poetischen Werken Bertolt Brechts. Berlin (GDR), 1970, pp. 143-146.
Yet not by James Thorpe in Principles of Textual Criticism. San Marino, 1972. He terms unpublished versions "potential versions", published ones "actual versions": "The editor should first distinguish between 'potential' and 'actual' versions. Any versions which are not communicated to the public—like drafts or working versions—may be 'potential' works of art" (p. 187). One is reminded of Horace's famous dictum in De arte poetica, 389-390: "delere licebit, / quod non edideris, nescit vox missa reverti." ("You may still delete what you have not published; once escaped, the word knows no return.")
It is approximately in this sense that Hans Zeller first defined the term "authorised" (=declared valid by the author) in his article "Textkritik" in Das Fischer Lexikon, vol. 35/2 (Literatur 2/2), Frankfurt, 1965, p. 559. Zeller later adopted the definition of the Goethe Academy edition (see below).
G. v. Loeper in his rejoinder to Düntzer's review, in: Goethe-Jahrbuch 12 (1891), p. 277. To adopt a text-critical attitude towards such a—supposedly—direct self-expression by Goethe necessarily seemed presumptuous: cf. pp. 277-278.
Cf. Herman Grimm's corresponding aversion to the stance of the textual critic who intrudes between the author and the reader. ("Die neue Goethe-Ausgabe." In: Deutsche Rundschau 53 (1887), 426f.) "I feel that in all the classics, the reader, whoever he may be, should be treated in such a way that he does not feel the need for any middleman between himself and the author. [. . .] No reader should study the dates and conditions of the genesis so deeply that he becomes distracted from the poetry."
Friedrich Beissner, "Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten der Stuttgarter Ausgabe." In: Die Stuttgarter Hölderlin-Ausgabe. Ein Arbeitsbericht. Stuttgart, 1942, p. 18.
Cf. Friedrich Beissner, "Aus der Werkstatt der Stuttgarter Hölderlin-Ausgabe." In: his Hölderlin. Reden und Aufsätze. Weimar, 1961, p. 254.
For example by a discontinuous inscription of parts of the text contrary to their order as it exists for the reader.
For example by a preparatory notation of so-called 'germinating words' distributed over the pages; see Hans Werner Seiffert, Untersuchungen zur Methode der Herausgabe deutscher Texte. Berlin (GDR), 1963 (Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Deutsche Sprache und Literatur, 28), p. 122.
Beissner, "Aus der Werkstatt", p. 261; cf. also Grimm, "Die neue Goethe-Ausgabe", p. 429: "The chronological view of an author's work breaks the unity of the image of him that tends to form as soon as he no longer dwells among the living."
Organological interpretations of the writer's behaviour are a typical expression of the dominantly reception-oriented perspective. The author is attributed with super-human traits in order that one may fully entrust oneself to him.
Beissner did not provide a definition of the terms when he introduced the distinction between authorial (Entstehungs-) and transmissional variants (Überlieferungs-Varianten) (see note 27).
For the notion of a 'poet edition', see Hans Joachim Kreutzer, Überlieferung und Edition. Textkritische und editorische Probleme dargestellt am Beispiel einer historisch-kritischen Kleist-Ausgabe. Heidelberg, 1976 (Beihefte zum Euphorion, 7), p. 75.
It is hardly a coincidence that the Weimar Goethe edition and the Stuttgart Hölderlin edition both lack the specification "historical" or "historical-critical" in their titles.
Schillers sämmtliche Schriften. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. Karl Goedeke. 15 sections. Stuttgart, 1867-1876.—Cf. Handbuch der Editionen, p. 498.—(Subsequently cited as Schiller.)
Cf. Schiller, 15, 2, p. vi; see also the presentation of different versions of some poems, vol. 11, pp. 23-30, 40-42, 62-64, 76-90.
Friedrich Hölderlin. Sämtliche Werke. 'Frankfurter Ausgabe.' Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. D. E. Sattler, vol. 1, 1975. Pioneers of this development were W. Binder and A. Kelletat (Hölderlins Friedensfeier. Lichtdrucke der Reinschrift und ihrer Vorstufen. Tübingen, 1959) and Hans Zeller with the poetry volumes of the historical-critical C. F. Meyer edition (Bern, 1962- ) and with the essay "Zur gegenwärtigen Aufgabe der Editions-technik. Ein Versuch, komplizierte Handschriften darzustellen." Euphorion 52 (1958), 356-377, esp. 362.
Its significance for the history of editing was only recently discovered: Karl-Heinz Hahn, Helmut Holtzhauer, "Wissenschaft auf Abwegen? Zur Edition von Werken der neueren deutschen Literatur." In: Forschen und Bilden. Mitteilungen aus den Nationalen Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten der klassischen deutschen Literatur in Weimar, 1966, H. 1, p. 6; Kreutzer, Überlieferung und Edition, p. 74.
To support his differentiated rendering of the textual findings in manuscripts, Hans Zeller, for example, cited R. Backman, the co-editor of the historical-critical Grillparzer edition, and Beissner.
Werke Goethes, issued by the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1956-1958 under the direction of Ernst Grumach; since 1963 edited by the Institut für Deutsche Sprache und Literatur der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin.) Berlin (GDR), 1952-1966.—Cf. Handbuch der Editionen, pp. 193-196.
Cf. Ernst Grumach, "Aufgaben und Probleme der modernen Goethe-Edition." In: Wissenschaftliche Annalen zur Verbreitung neuer Forschungsergebnisse, ed. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1 (1952), H. 1, pp. 3-11.—Handbuch der Editionen, p. 195.
Grumach, "Probleme der Goethe-Ausgabe", p. 49; see also Grumach's edition of the West-Östlicher Divan in the Academy edition (Berlin, 1952). The apparatus was never published. A working draft by Grumach was rendered by Seiffert (see note 48), pp. 152-155. Grumach's controversial edition has recently been commented on by Wilhelm Solms, Interpretation als Textkritik. Zur Edition des West-Östlichen Divans. Heidelberg, 1974, pp. 30-34. —Muncker's edition of Klopstock's Odes represents another example of a "critical-historical" edition.
Siegfried Scheibe, "Zu Problemen der historisch-kritischen Edition von Goethes Werken. Aus der praktischen Arbeit der Akademie-Ausgabe." Weimarer Beiträge 6 (1960), 1147-1148; Siegfried Scheibe, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien", pp. 3-15.
Cf. Grundlagen der Goethe-Ausgabe. Ausgearbeitet von den Mitarbeitern der Goethe-Ausgabe der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. [1961.] 43 fols. [Distributed in manuscript.], pp. 11-14; Scheibe, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien", pp. 41-44.
Their characteristic feature is the increasing dominance of the productive imagination over the intellectual talents, with the result that the poetic work no longer reaches a conclusion. "Il existait une sorte d'Éthique de la forme qui conduisait au travail infini. [. . .] On s'éloigne par là des conditions 'naturelles' ou ingénues de la Littérature, et l'on vient insensiblement à confondre la composition d'un ouvrage de l'esprit, qui est chose finie, avec la vie de l'esprit même,—lequel est une puissance de transformation toujours en acte. On en arrive au travail pour le travail. Aux yeux de ces amateurs d'inquiétude et de perfection, un ouvrage n'est jamais achevé,—mot qui pour eux n'a aucun sens,—mais abandonné; et cet abandon, qui le livre aux flammes ou au public (et qu'il soit l'effet de la lassitude ou de l'obligation de livrer), leur est une sorte d'accident, comparable à la rupture d'une réflexion, que la fatique, le fâcheux, ou quelque sensation viennent rendre nulle." (Paul Valéry, "Au sujet du 'Cimetière marin'.") In: Oeuvres, vol. 1, Paris, 1957 (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), p. 1497; cf. also Franz Kafka who puts his sense of a fundamental lack of plan and finality to his writing into the words: "One must write into the darkness, as into a tunnel." (Max Brod, Über Franz Kafka. Frankfurt, 1966, p. 349.)
It differentiates document categories in the main by physical characteristics; cf. Scheibe, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien", pp. 19-27.
The variants are recorded in a uniform manner; non-variant elements are repeated, where necessary, in order to establish the relation of the variant apparatus to the edited text.
Cf. Scheibe, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien", pp. 11-14; Zeller, "Befund und Deutung", pp. 47-48; Seidel, Funktions- und Gegenstandsbedingtheit, pp. 24-26.
Zeller, in particular, has repeatedly stressed another aspect of objectivity, demanding that interpretations should be identified as such, so as to be rendered verifiable against the textual findings wherever possible ("Befund und Deutung", p. 47). Objectiveness in this sense is obviously important for any concept of critical editing.
This explains the endeavour to structure the terminology and methodology of editing as comprehensively as possible; cf. for example Hans Zeller, "Braucht die Editionslehre eine Fachsprache?" In: Die Nachlassedition / La publication de manuscrits inédits, ed. Louis Hay and Winfried Woesler. Bern, 1979 (Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik, Reihe A, vol. 4), pp. 31-38.
In so far as revisional work for Goethe increased with his age, the attitude of the Academy edition to the author and his work might also be characterised by saying that the editors felt closer to the young than to the old Goethe.
Cf. Scheibe, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien", pp. 28-29; the definition recurs with only minor modifications in "Zum editorischen Problem", pp. 18-21.
"Author's manuscripts" are in fact defined so as to include both scribal copies and proofs that were authorially revised.
Substitutional variants are therefore generally viewed as corrections: "All alterations of the basic level (deletions, additions, rearrangements, singly or in combination) as well as alterations of corrections are corrections." (Scheibe, "Zu einigen Grundprinzipien", p. 18.)
D. E. Sattler, "Friedrich Hölderlin. 'Frankfurter Ausgabe.' Editions-prinzipien und Editionsmodell." Hölderlin-Jahrbuch 19/20 (1975-1977), 120.
Plinius, Ep. 7, 17, 7-8.—Virgil, in writing the Georgica, is said to have composed and dictated a large number of lines every morning and to have spent the rest of the day revising them, thereby reducing to a very few the lines produced. He is said to have compared such revision to the habit of a mother bear licking her young, born as unsightly pieces of flesh, gradually into shape. (Suetonius, Vir. Ill., Vit. Verg. 22.)
Johann Christoph Wagenseil (1633-1705) had an early opportunity to observe Petrarch's stylistic revisions of his Canzoniere in the autograph preserved in the Vatican library (Vat. lat. 3196), and he quotes at length the library custodian's comments: "It is extremely fortunate that Petrarch only lightly deleted what did not please him, leaving it still legible, so that, both for amusement and gain, one may compare his first and last thoughts and see what he deemed inappropriate and how he improved it. How desirable were it—the custodian added—still to possess in like manner the notebooks of the Greek and Latin poets. Most certainly one would often much better be able to learn the sense of the authors from them than from the commentaries written in after times." ("Bericht von der Meister-Singer-Kunst." In: De Sacri Rom. Imperii Libera Civitate Noribergensi Commentation. [. . .] Altdorf, 1697, p. 481.)
"Briefe, die neueste Litteratur betreffend." 19th letter, 1759. In: Gotthold Ephraim Lessings sämtliche Schriften, issued by Karl Lachmann, 3rd edition edited by Franz Muncker, vol. 8. Stuttgart, 1892, p. 58.
Cf. Goethe's well-known statement about Wieland: "It is, for instance, not too much to claim that an intelligent and diligent penman would be able to develop a complete system of taste by comparing all the editions of our Wieland [. . .] on the basis alone of the stages of correction undertaken by this writer who ceaselessly strove to improve his work." ("Literarischer Sansculottismus", first published in Horen, 1795, St. 5; WA I, 40, p. 201.)
The classic example of this type of author is Petrarch, whose stylistic improvements to the Canzoniere (see note 94) in some instances extended over many years. (Cf. Carl Appel, Zur Entwicklung italienischer Dichtungen Petrarcas. Halle, 1891, pp. 20-116.) Apart from
Cf. Karl-Heinz Hahn, "Grundzüge einer archivalischen Handschriftenkunde." Archivmitteilungen 19 (1969), 24-29, 67-74.
Cf. Günter Dammann, "Untersuchungen zur Arbeitsweise Georg Heyms an seinen Handschriften." Orbis litterarum 26 (1971), 42-67, esp. p. 67.—Günter Dammann, "Theorie des Stichworts. Ein Versuch über die lyrischen Entwürfe Georg Heyms." In: Texte und Varianten, pp. 203-218.—Gunter Martens, "Textdynamik und Edition." In: Texte und Varianten, pp. 165-199.—Walther Killy, "Entwurf eines Gedichts (Über den Helian-Komplex.)" In: Walther Killy, Über Georg Trakl. Göttingen, 31967, pp. 52-83.—Hans-Georg Kemper, Georg Trakls Entwürfe. Aspekte zu ihrem Verständnis. Tübingen, 1970.—Franz Kafka. Das Schloss, apparatus volume ed. Malcolm Pasley. Frankfurt, 1982 (Franz Kafka. Schriften. Tagebücher. Kritische Ausgabe, ed. J. Born, G. Neumann, M. Pasley, J. Schillemeit), pp. 72-80, esp. pp. 75-77.—Hartmut Binder, "Kafkas Schaffensprozess, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Urteils. Eine Analyse seiner Aussagen über das Schreiben mit Hilfe der Handschriften und auf Grund psychologischer Theoreme." Euphorion 70 (1976), 129-174.—Wolf Kittler, Gerhard Neumann, Edition und Interpretation. Kafkas "Drucke zu Lebzeiten"—Editorische Technik und hermeneutische Entscheidung. Freiburg, 1982 (Freiburger Universitätsblätter, 78).—Gerhard Neumann, "Der verschleppte Prozess. Literarisches Schaffen zwischen Schreibstrom und Werkidol." Poetica 14 (1982), 92-112.
Variants of such an author do therefore not lend themselves to the concerns of stylistics or poetics. Cf. for example the examination of Kafka's and Trakl's variants by Hartmut Binder, "Kafkas Varianten." Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 50 (1976), 683-719; see also Kemper (note 99), esp. pp. 210-211. —In place of specific stylistic improvements they do however betray attempts at strengthening the aesthetic and illusionary force of the writing in poetologically unconventional ways. Binder, for instance, observes a condensation of the sensual in Kafka's alterations, and Kemper discerns analogy and contrast as laws of association in Trakl's variants.
"Salon de 1859." In: Baudelaire, Oeuvres complètes. Texte établi et annoté par Y.-G. Le Dantec. Paris, 1954, pp. 772-776.—Cf. Hugo Friedrich, Die Struktur der modernen Lyrik. Hamburg, 1956, pp. 39-41.
Mon Coeur mis à nu, XCI, XCIV.—Cf. also XIV: "Il faut vouloir rêver et savoir réver. Évocation de l'inspiration. Art magique. Se mettre tout de suite à écrire [. . .] Travail immédiat, même mauvais, vaut mieux que la rêverie."
Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary. Nouvelle version précédée des scénarios inédits. Textes établis sur les manuscrits de Rouen avec une introduction et des notes par J. Pommier et G. Leleu. Paris, 1949, p. v.
Flaubert to Louise Colet [23.12.1853]: "Nuit de vendredi, 2 heures." In: Oeuvres complètes de Gustave Flaubert. Correspondence. Nouvelle edition augmentée. Vol. 3. Paris, 1927, p. 405.—See also Flaubert's letter to Elisa Schlesinger dated 14.1.1857: "Je vais donc rependre ma pauvre vie si plate et tranquille, où les phrases sont des aventures et où je ne receuille d'autres fleurs que des métaphores. J'écrirai comme par le passé, pour le seul plaisir d'écrire, pour moi seul, sans aucune arrière-pensée d'argent ou de tapage." (Vol. 4, p. 147.)
Kafka to Felice Bauer, 16.1.1913. In: Franz Kafka. Briefe an Felice, ed. E. Heller and J. Born. Frankfurt, 1967, p. 252.
Diary entry of 3 January 1912. In: Franz Kafka. Tagebücher, 1910-1923, ed. Max Brod, 1967, p. 163.
Cf. Binder, "Kafkas Schaffensprozess", p. 130.—J. Unseld, Franz Kafka. Ein Schriftstellerleben. Die Geschichte seiner Veröffentlichungen. München, 21982, pp. 234-236.
Cf. Max Brod's Postscript to the first edition of Kafka's Prozess (Franz Kafka, Der Prozess. New York 31946, pp. 277-284.)—Binder, "Kafkas Schaffensprozess", p. 130.
Valéry for example interprets the writer primarily as the producer of his texts and not as their reader. Valéry (note 74), pp. 1496-1507.
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