University of Virginia Library

IV

The common link of all these questions and of the theories available with which to answer them is the concept of authority. Authority is not something "out there" to be discovered and analyzed. It is a concept brought to the situation by the observer. It is whatever it is defined to be. The hesitation one has in answering these questions—and, therefore, of knowing whether authorial acts are determined or free—comes from the different definitions of authority implied by the way the questions state the supposed conditions.

The idea that authority is not intrinsic or discovered in the textual problems but is, instead, brought to the problem by the editor to help evaluate the problem is not one I expect most persons to recognize immediately.[42] It is worth, therefore, a separate discussion of authority before we can get on properly with the questions I have just posed.

The greatest obstacle to understanding differences in editorial principles and in particular to understanding the claims of the social contract is the word "authority." I think this is so not only because it is used to denote several different things, which users suppose to be clear from the context, but because it is an emotionally loaded word that grants approval; it is not cleanly descriptive.

I would like to sort out various definitions of the word derived from its use to describe textual phenomena, show that it is used to indicate concepts at various levels of thinking, show that sometimes it is used as a specific description (as we use the word "yellow" in the phrase that is a yellow schoolbus) and other times as a comparative word (as we use the words "clear" and

"clearer" with an eye-doctor to indicate which lens clarifies the eye chart better), and show how those things can be thought of separately from the approval or disapproval indicated by the words "authoritative" and "nonauthoritative."

One meaning of authority is "deriving from the author." This usually means that a word, phrase, or point of punctuation can be shown to have been written or dictated by the author. Melville's "coiled fish" has authority; the compositor's "soiled fish" does not. Such words are said to have authority because we know they came from the author. One could call this specific kind of authority "primary authorial authority," which may sound redundant but is not when we consider other meanings for authority. An author's manuscript, of course, has primary authorial authority. So do the autograph alterations in proofs or setting-copies for revised editions and instructions in letters or notes to secretaries, compositors, or publishers.

Another meaning for authority is "having a demonstrable, though not precisely known, relation to the author." This usually means that it is generally known that the author did revise or proofread the text which is said, therefore, to have authority. The specific words, phrases or punctuation that have "primary authorial authority" are not known. One could call this "secondary authorial authority." Instances of secondary authorial authority can be seen in a scribal copy or typescript made from a lost manuscript or a magazine publication made from a lost revised carbon typescript where the fact of authorial revision is not in dispute but the details of specific revisions cannot be recovered.

Another meaning for authority is "deriving from a document with 'primary' or 'secondary authorial authority.'" This usually means that the text referred to is the closest known text to one the author wrote or otherwise supervised. It does not mean that the author necessarily had anything to do with the typesetting of proofreading. This could be called "primary documentary authority" to distinguish it from later editions. Instances of "primary documentary authority" would be the so-called good quartos of Shakespeare's plays or any first published appearance of a book for which prepublication forms have disappeared and for which it is reasonable to suppose that setting copy was the author's manuscript or fair copies made from documents with "primary authorial authority."

Another meaning for authority is "having a precedent in a historical document." This usually means that the text, as preserved in physical documents that may be (and probably are) corrupt, has an unknown relation to the author and may or may not preserve the authorial forms as successfully as other documents with similar characteristics. An instance of this kind of authority would be the existence of say three syndicated magazine versions of a story no longer extant in manuscript. The differences between the versions probably originated in the composing rooms of the various publications. There is no other "authoritative" source for the story, hence these three documents are the authorities. This could be called "radial documentary authority."

Supposing that one of the three documentary authorities corresponds in the pattern of punctuation more closely to the patterns familiar in the author's surviving manuscript, that document may be said to have "more authority" than the other two, at least with regard to punctuation. Notice that this brings into play the word "authority" in a comparative rather than a descriptive sense. Here the word is used evaluatively and reflects critical judgment in analyzing punctuation patterns. It would be more accurate to say that this one document is "more likely to be authoritative in its punctuation than the other two" than to say that "it is more authoritative," and it would be better yet to have a word other than authority or authoritative to describe what is being said. Perhaps it would be wise to revert to the terms "more or less sophisticated" and "more or less corrupt" to indicate our sense of the relative amount of intentional and unintentional alteration introduced by compositors or other production personnel.

Another instance of "documentary authority" illustrates yet another way in which the word authority is used evaluatively. If one has a "difficult" reading in a text with "secondary authorial authority" or even with "primary documentary authority" which has been altered to an "easy" reading in a purely derivative "nonauthoritative" text, editors sometimes resist the temptation to adopt the easier reading by "sticking to authority." This use of the word places value on the tangible text over the critical conjecture of later compositors or modern editors. The possibility that the physical text may be wrong can never be proven, though there are some difficult readings that no one (so far) has tried to defend; but "Mne Serephim" in Blake's "The Book of Thel," "spitting" rather than "splitting" in Shakespeare's Henry VIII (2.4.181), and the auctioneer who "repeated his discomposure" in Thackeray's Vanity Fair are just a few of myriads of cases where the editor is tempted to supply conjecture rather than "stick to authority." Just as the documentary reading cannot be proven to be wrong, so the conjecture can never be established to be correct (if it could it would cease to be conjecture). The point here is that the word authority is used evaluatively to defend an action taken rather than descriptively to indicate the nature of a situation. It would be just as accurate to say of the editor who "stuck to authority" that he knuckled under to the tyranny of copy-text or that he is a very conservative editor or even that he is an unimaginative editor. All these terms are evaluative and not indicative of anything demonstrable. What can be said specifically and objectively of "Mne," "spitting," and "repeated his discomposure" is that they occur in texts with "primary" or "secondary documentary authority"— that and no more; anything else would be a matter of judgment.

All of the foregoing definitions reflect an author-centric view of textual criticism. Especially in the use of "authority" comparatively, one can see the controlling influence of an attitude of respect for authorial autonomy with regard to txets. There is nevertheless considerable room for disagreement within these views. Depending on the stress one puts on the authority of one document over another, depending on the sense of historical or documentary

integrity one espouses, one can within these definitions be a documentary editor or a critical editor.[43]

Hershel Parker invokes yet another definition of authority when he limits it to the product of the act of creativity during the time that creativity as he defines it is in fact going on. As the author works he imbues the work with his intention and perhaps finds within the work the work's intention, which then takes over and becomes the controlling force of the work. That controlling force becomes the "authority" of the work and its intention— and it therefore becomes the editor's aim to edit the work in accordance with that authority. To do so, he may have to reject a good deal of editorial tinkering that the author may have done to the text after he had lost the creative urge that produced the work.

A totally different level of meaning is invoked when one asks "by what authority does the editor emend the text?" Here the word "authority" has no direct reference to the source of a specific reading; whether a word began with the author or a compositor or whether it is in a text with primary or secondary documentary authority are irrelevant questions. What this question asks is, what is the critical theory about works of art that leads you to believe that the author is the ultimate source of authority? Why, for example, is it that the text you are trying to present need not have "better" readings, why is it sufficient that they be authorial?

Until a person is willing to consider the definition of authority at this level there is no point in wasting words about social theories of text or about the aesthetics of textual criticism. As long as the author-centric view is the only legitimate view, James Thorpe and Jerome McGann will remain outsiders whose editorial principles need not be taken seriously.

It is painful to consider the question, "by what authority does the editor emend the text?" because a serious consideration of the answer requires examination of fundamental assumptions about things that turn out to be problematical rather than solid and objective. As long as one remains settled inside the author-centric world of ideas, the concept of authority is very useful practically in the business of producing scholarly editions, documentary authority is a firm resting place, primary authorial authority is like being in clover. The problem with new editorial discussions is that they are successfully forcing thought to be expended on this higher level of authority. They are succeeding because it has become de rigueur to be self-conscious about our critical theories.

In order for it to be acceptable to consider McGann's or McKenzie's editorial theories, one must put in abeyance the definitions of authority I have surveyed above (put them on hold, so to speak), shift gears so as to consider the larger questions of authority which a "social theory of texts" demands, and anticipate the possibility that one's author-centric definitions of the materials of textual criticism will have counterparts reflecting a different higher level concept of authority.

It appears to me, therefore, that the major question, the question of

authority, may usually be argued and settled before the evaluation of specific evidence concerning the composition and production of a given text takes place. Editors may approach a text with preconceived ideas, about the authority of the author or the social contract or the roles of publishers, that will predispose them to interpret the evidence in certain ways. In general terms the evaluation of specific evidence may not be determined by its intrinsic meaning—that which "the facts cry out"—but rather by some previous determination concerning the nature of the work of art. For example, it could be argued that Dreiser's friend Arthur Henry gave him bad advice about Sister Carrie that was designed to avoid problems Henry himself had encountered but were not designed to help Dreiser fulfil his own artistic intentions with regard to the novel. One editor will say, "save Dreiser from his misguided friend," another will say, "Henry is a fact of life, his advice was taken, the book that Sister Carrie would have become without his intervention is not recoverable." It could further be argued that Mrs. Page, the publisher's wife, influenced the book even more significantly than Henry, since by her insistence Sister Carrie was suppressed, though technically it was published. She did to the book something that can be measured in the circulation and reception of the book. Our first editor would say, "rescue Dreiser's book from the publisher's influence"; the second might say, "the publisher is a fact of life without which Sister Carrie would never have become a suppressed book—along with all the meaning that condition adds to the book." My point is not to say which is right but to question the proposition that the facts of publication history "cry out" for a specific treatment. What an editor will see as appropriate treatment will depend on a prior commitment to a definition of textual authority.

Seen from a sociological perspective, the specific evidence of the social context will "cry out" for attention and recognition as legitimate operants or influences in the production of texts. Those facts will cry equally loudly for a place in the reader's interpretation and appreciation of the work as representation not only of the aesthetics of its time but of the economics and politics of its time. The word "legitimate" is not exactly right; the fact that production (the world of publishers, editors and printers) is an acknowledged, normal part of the creation of book texts makes the participation of production staffs an integral part of the creation of the book, of the work of art. It is argued that authors write with the expectation of receiving production help in completing their art; therefore, the help they get is a "legitimate" operant or influence.

Further, given this essentially marxist orientation and principles, an edition that systematically eliminates the influences of all contracting parties but the author (such as was goal in the Pennsylvania edition of Dreiser's Sister Carrie) will be seen as partial, distorted, and misrepresentative of the historical, socio-economic and political event that produced it.

Marxist critics take the social implications of texts more seriously than most critics. In so far as they recognize the implications of editorial principles aimed at recovering the author's final intentions by eliminating the "external

influences," they can be nothing less than disappointed and will more likely be enraged by what they will see as the desecration of texts. For the marxist critic, the editor's pursuit of the pure virgin text is a hypocritical, evil coverup, unless it be an ignorant naive game.

The general rules or orientations that tend to predetermine how the evidence will be used often are forced upon the evidence. One can have rules, said A. E. Housman about editors nearly 100 years ago, but they will lead you wrong. That is, when an a priori set of principles leads to a mechanical or rigid manipulation of the facts of a given case, the potential provided by the overall view for generating exciting new insights is hobbled by an unexciting tyranny.

A look at specific cases will illustrate the uses and potential abuses of the fact that a general orientation predetermines the use of evidence. But first let me reiterate the basic questions that stimulated this discussion and encapsulate the competing and apparently irreconcilable general principles involved.

The questions are, what is textual integrity (the unity and honesty and authenticity of the text of a work of literary art)? Is it possible for there to be more than one "legitimate" integrity for a single work? What is meant by textual authority? What should it be? Do editors influence interpretations (how do they do it, should they do it, can it be avoided)?

These questions arise because traditional consensus about the real nature of works of art has been challenged by a competing notion that appears antithetical, and may in fact be antithetical, to it. Persons in our profession can no longer assume that everyone sees the work from a common point of view, but many of us act as though we still should be able to agree. I do not mean we can no longer count on standard interpretations; I mean we no longer agree about the nature of the thing we call a literary work. I also do not mean we no longer agree on the canon or on which works are literary; I mean we no longer agree about the foundation of words and linguistic meaning. One of these notions, the more traditional one, is that the work of art is a personal communication from an author to an audience. The assumption is that when the author writes he has something he wishes to communicate; when he puts words on the page he is trying to create certain effects in readers; when an author has developed the artistic and technical skill to create works of art, he is in control and does things deliberately. These assumptions I would call a commonsense approach because generally speaking people think that way about their own speech acts and because that is what I am trying to do right now. This view accords with the editorial principle of pursuing authorial intention and with the critical hermeneutical principles discussed by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., in Validity in Interpretation. And this general notion of authorship views the production process of turning manuscripts into books as a service to the author helping him get his creative effort into a form for general dissemination.

The apparently antithetical competing notion is that the work of art is social rather than individual. Rather than the artist using language to create

a new work of art, the language speaks the artist. Rather than the production crew being assistants in the author's effort to communicate, the publishing world is a cultural agency which employs authors to aid them in providing society with works of art. The actualizing or domesticating of art for society is the production function. Both the author and the production personnel are to some extent cultural puppets, products of their time producing inevitable art. The way we know that what came out of the process was inevitable is that something else did not materialize instead. The function of criticism in this view is to interpret the texts as cultural artifacts in their historical settings.

If nothing else, this survey of competing views of editing has convinced me even more that editing is a critical enterprise that not only involves criticism but is in fact a form of literary criticism. Criticism is interpretation; editions, like other interpretations, can be supported by evidence and argument, but they cannot be proven or validated. They are not definitive. Consequently, the interpretation of the work, which an edition is, must have its literary critical basis clearly acknowledged by the editor for the edition user. I believe no theorist should say that his method is the only responsible one, though I think it is possible to discover that some methods are irresponsible.

One very interesting idea arising from D. F. McKenzie's remarks about the object that is the work of art is that the physical object that is the scholarly edition changes and enriches the work much more than it preserves or restores it. In critical editing, not only is the edited text itself one which never existed before, it is surrounded by alter-texts and related historical materials which have never before been attached to it physically. Scholarly editions invite a kind of reading no other textual form comes close to suggesting. As McGann has put it, scholarly editions invite the reader to read linearly, radially, and spacially all at the same time.[44] Scholarly editors like to think of themselves as historians and preservers when in fact they are the most progressive innovators of new texts and new contexts in the profession.

More questions become possible now: What is the textual editor's responsibility to the author and to the social contract? Is that one responsibility or two? If two, how can the editor balance them? I would like to think it is possible to identify and respond to both responsibilities. But an extended examination of a specific actual case is the only way to demonstrate how that can be done. To do so will lead to assessments of a related question: What is the importance of authorial intention and of the social contract to literary criticism?

I originally intended to include a lengthy discussion at this point of Thackeray's Henry Esmond as an editorial problem to be considered from both the authorial and the social points of view as a trial answer to these questions. I believe, however, this discussion is long enough without that attempt. My essay on Esmond is in my nearly completed book on Thackeray and his publishers. I believe most editors can develop their own answers just as well in reference to specific editorial problems with which they are

familiar—provided of course that as A. E. Housman stipulates they have brains not pudding in their heads.

One way to balance awareness of cultural context, including the ministrations of production crews, with a respect of authorial intentions was suggested by Fredson Bowers in his address to the Society for Textual Scholarship in 1987: "As a textual critic I am inclined to suggest that awareness of this phenomenon should encourage an editor to remove from the text as much as possible of this non-authorial accretion when it is actually of no material aid in assisting the latest original authorial intention" (my italics).[45] The suggestion is worth pondering though there may be some contortion involved in believing original authorial intentions to be also final intentions and though the process limits critically the force of any supposed "social contract."

There are serious, legitimate differences in point of view in these matters. We may need, for certain important and rich works of literary art, several scholarly editions: the edition representing the author's final intentions, the edition representing the historical event of first publication, the edition representing the thorough revision—each would possibly affect the student in a different way. None would of itself be THE work of art. At the very least, the facts of controversial cases point to the need for editors to be clear-eyed and honest about the particular principles they follow and to clearly identify those principles and the kind of edition they produce. It is not enough to call it a scholarly edition—even if it is approved by the MLA. Ultimately, it is an impossible quest to produce "the edition that conveys the author's most comprehensive intentions"; what we can hope to do is produce "the edition that conveys the author's intentions most comprehensively."[46]