University of Virginia Library

I

The first step in thinking through a new approach to the question of copy-text is to examine whether there is a future for critical editions—editions, that is, in which the editors, using their informed critical judgment, make alterations in the documentary forms of texts that have come down to us (or at least allow themselves the freedom to make such alterations, whether or not they ultimately find any changes to be necessary). All the various "best-text" or "copy-text" theories are concerned with the process of altering documentary texts; but if a convincing argument can be made that no such process is justified, then there is no point considering critical editing further. In the continual give-and-take of arguments over subjectivity and objectivity, some scholars naturally take the position that editions presenting critical texts are less valuable (if granted any value at all) than editions containing facsimile or diplomatic (or computer "hypertext") reproductions of texts as they appear in extant documents.[3] The late twentieth century has seen an energetic resurgence of this view, springing from two seemingly contradictory premises. One—that authors do not control either the language they use or the forces that allow their work to reach the public—denigrates the significance of authorial intention and thus brings renewed attention to texts as they were published. The other premise—that the process of revision and change through which verbal works move is of more valid concern than any single final text that may be postulated—causes increased interest to be directed toward the texts of every prepublication draft and revised edition. Although the former premise tends to reject the author and the

latter to concentrate exclusively on the author, both reflect disaffection with critical editing as a supposedly authoritarian imposition of stasis on inherently unstable material.[4]

These trends have therefore publicized specific programmatic reasons for the production of facsimile and diplomatic editions, besides the obvious general motivation to make widely available the texts of unique manuscripts and scarce printed editions (recognizing, of course, that no photograph or transcription can preserve all the physical evidence of the original—and that all of it may be relevant to textual study).[5] Although facsimile and diplomatic editions are noncritical in that their editors' aim is to reproduce without alteration the words and punctuation of documentary texts, critical judgment is inevitably involved in deciphering handwritten (or poorly printed) texts and in deciding which documentary versions of a work to present (if all are not to be included). Because this decision-making is not intended to alter texts, however, the editions that result are usually thought of as more "objective," despite the number of subjective decisions that may have been involved; and although arguments about the relative amounts of subjectivity and objectivity in editing are normally concerned with critical editions, there is no doubt that those persons who wish to minimize subjectivity in critical editing should logically be drawn to noncritical editions. Facsimile and diplomatic editions, whatever subjectivity may underlie them, are fundamentally different in conception from editions in which the goal is to alter documentary texts according to some predetermined guideline. By not requiring such guidelines, they have seemed to need less discussion over the years than have critical editions; and their increased presence in recent methodological debates is to be welcomed as a partial redressing of the balance. There is no question that they serve an important function in the study of the past.

But any attempt to argue that they are necessarily superior to critical editions, or indeed that they constitute the only legitimate kind of edition, cannot possibly succeed. The two kinds must always coexist, for they represent two indispensable elements in approaching the past: the ordered presentation of artifactual evidence, and the creation, from that evidence, of versions of past moments that are intended to be more comprehensively faithful than the artifacts themselves—random (and perhaps damaged) survivors as they are. It is not possible, in any case, to prevent human beings from interpreting evidence; to ban critical editions would be as futile as to try to suppress any other product that reflects the natural

working of the mind. Critical editions, however, are not merely inevitable; they are desirable. A text reconstructed by a person who is immersed in, and has thought deeply about, the body of surviving evidence relevant to a work, its author, and its time may well teach the rest of us something we could not have discovered for ourselves, even if the reconstruction can never be definitive—and even if, indeed, it places us in a position to criticize its own constitution. Authorially intended texts, which have been the goal of almost all critical editions in the past, cannot be expected to reside, in perfect accuracy, in surviving documents—or perhaps, for that matter, in any documents that ever existed. But the fact that they are not—and possibly never were—fully available in physical form does not deprive them of the status of historical events. (The same could of course be said of texts as intended by publishers or any of the other individuals that had a hand in the production process.)[6] Some people may not be interested in reconstructing such events, but their lack of interest cannot render the effort invalid.

There is another reason that critical editions are essential: they are demanded by the very nature of verbal works. Like musical and choreographic works—and unlike works of visual and plastic art—verbal works employ an intangible medium. Any tangible representation of such a work—as in letterforms on paper—cannot be the work itself, just as choreographic notation or traditional musical scores are not works of dance or music. The media involved—language, movement, and sound—being intangible, these works can be stored only through conversion to another form, which in effect becomes a set of instructions for reconstituting the works.[7] Any instructions—indeed, any kind of reproduction or report—may be inaccurate, and thus every attempt to reconstruct such works (or versions of works) must include a readiness to recognize textual errors in their stored forms. Understanding the difference between works and documents also enables one to see that a concern with the integrity of discrete versions is not incompatible with the adoption of variants from different documents.[8] Reconstituting works (or versions) in intangible

media is a critical activity, and universal agreement about their makeup cannot be expected. But if we wish to experience the texts of works (or versions), and not simply the texts of documents, we must leave the certainty (or relative certainty) of the documentary texts for the uncertainty of our reconstructions.[9] Every act of reading is in fact an act of critical editing: we often call critical essays "readings," and critical editions are also the records of readings. The editors who produce them earn the respect of other readers to the extent that their work reflects historical learning and literary sensitivity; but no reader is likely to agree with every decision made by any other reader, even the most respected critical editor. The process of critical editing is the ineluctable, if unending, effort to surmount the limitations of artifacts in the pursuit of works from the past.