... a on-going discussion on the SHARP list
Wim
-----Original Message-----
From: SHARP-L Society for the History of Authorship, Reading &
Publishing [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Leon
Jackson
Sent: 16 April 2007 05:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Differences/similarities between editing and criticism
I have to agree with Daniel O'Donnell that when Charles Ackerley refers
to the dichotomy between editing and criticism, he means the distinction
between those scholars who, on the one hand, use the tools of
bibliography to prepare scholarly editions of primary texts (editors),
and those who, on the other, use various hermeneutic approaches to
extrapolate meanings from those primary texts (critics). For the benefit
of those who aren't familiar with it, the work to which O'Donnell
refers, *Textual Scholarship,* is by D. C Greetham, and it is, indeed,
an excellent starting point for the study of the former.
There are a number of ways to approach the editing/criticism dichotomy.
Some have considered the phenomenon historically and explored how
academic departments have tussled over the relative merits of each
approach. (This would be the so-called Eurpean tradition is seeing the
two disciplines dichotomously). Gerald Graff's *Professing Literature*,
for example, suggests that for much of its history, the academic study
of English has been torn between formal and contextual approaches to the
study of authorship. One way this was manifested was in a tension
between philological and historical criticism. The critical/editorial
tension would seem to be another iteration of the same struggle, as is
the theory/historicism divide that exists in departments even today.
More typically, though, and at least more recently, scholars on both
sides of the divide (the textual scholars in particular) have argued
that the dichotomy is essentially spurious: that the criticism we
undertake is predicated on certain models of textual transmission, while
the establishment of authoritative, or definitive textual editions
implies, itself, very strong critical assumptions. Among the works that
spring to mind that seek to complicate the editing/criticism divide are
Jerome McGann's *A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism* and his
*Textual Criticism and Literary Interpretation* and Hershel Parker's
*Flawed Texts and Verbal Icons.* Thomas Tanselle also writes regularly
and immensely illuminatingly on these subjects in *Studies in
Bibliography*, which is freely available on-line at
<http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/bsuva/sb/>. I'd just browse the TOCs for
the volumes in reverse order and see what you turn up.
I'm sure there are many other, and possibly much better, works that
address these issues (it's not really my field), but these are certainly
useful places to start looking. Good luck with your project!
Leon
----
Prof. Leon Jackson | e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Dept. of English | phone : (803) 777-2108 [W]
University of South Carolina | office: Humanities 419
Columbia, SC 29208 | http://tinyurl.com/yjgr8h
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