Dan and All,
Yes, I think what you are saying here relates to this, but it's not an
exact match. You conclude by saying there is a "physical text" related
to but distinct from a "conceptual text," but I would prefer your use of
"witness" to refer to the "physical." But this is perhaps splitting
hairs.
I am not sure though that Book History is just a matter of putting the
physical and conceptual together. That is what bibliography and textual
criticism do, too, so I am not sure your formulation describes what
distinguishes BH from other textual studies. I imagine BH focusing more
on the production and consumption of books, and actually more on the
consumption. But a comprehensive view would I think put both textual
criticism and BH together. (I try to speak to this in my forthcoming
essay "Witness and Access" in Textual Cultures.
Since I am trying (pathetically) to learn more about markup and
digitization in preparation for putting together the Melville Electronic
Archive (MEL), I am fascinated by your thoughts on markup. I think I
get your point about the markup being a form of conceptual text, but
since markup is code (yes?), isn't this still a physical text
representing a conceptual text? (I don't have an emoticon to indicate
that the preceding question is not rhetorical or tendentious; I'm really
asking.)
yrs,
John
___________
John Bryant, English Department, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY 11549
>>> "Dan O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]> 03/22/07 6:47 PM >>>
On Thu, 2007-22-03 at 17:06 -0400, John Bryant wrote:
> When it comes to using the words "text" and "object," I tend to think
in
> terms that Barbara's mentor Tom Tanselle offers: that is, a text is
> words or wording, and hence essentially conceptual; a book or document
> is an object on which a version of the text is inscribed. Generally,
> speaking texts are not objects; they are separate from the material
> documents upon which they appear, or even the ink or medium in which
> they are inscribed or printed. At least that is a good place to
start.
I agree. But I think what I was saying actually matches this: the study
of transmission, composition, and reception of texts where the primary
focus is on how these aspects of textual activity were or can be
understood historically, sociologically, or anthropologically. I.e. a
study that studies the behaviours and objects and understandings of the
conceptual text in its various manifestations at various times and by
various people: witnesses are physical representations of conceptual
texts, for example. People buy books because they are carriers of
conceptual texts. Book history merges the study of the conceptual and
physical texts.
>
> And when we look at texts in revision, or what I call revision texts,
we
> have an interesting condition that illustrates this conceptual notion
of
> text (v. material books) and which might also be worth discussing. In
> some recent articles and in my forthcoming book, Melville Unfolding, I
> talk about the "invisible text of revision." I also alluded to this
at
> STS last week. When a writer revises on the page, s/he composes,
> strikes out words, inserts words, and re-composes. What is printed
> finally is the last event in the revision process and that is what is
> visible to us. What is invisible to us is the revision text, which
may
> not be visible even on the manuscript page.
A neat example of the difference between physical text and conceptual
text comes in markup: if you markup a diplomatic transcription in XML
you need to change vocabulary--or at least your understanding of the
vocabulary--the moment you start thinking of the conceptual text: words
change from markings on the page to semantic and syntactic units.
--
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD
Chair, Text Encoding Initiative <http://www.tei-c.org/>
Director, Digital Medievalist Project
<http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/>
Associate Professor and Chair of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Vox: +1 403 329 2378
Fax: +1 403 382-7191
Homepage: http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/
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