Two points: 
1) Perhaps "texts" and "books" are indeed two separate things, as John
says, the one slightly more immaterial, the other material. Yet one
cannot have "text" without the physical object in/on which it is
inscribed. Where "text" would exist independently, it would have to be
in the "work" (using Tanselle's distinction between the two).

2) At STS last week I responded to John's concept of "invisible text",
saying I felt uncomfortable with the idea that the text implied in the
currente calamo can be made visible. Although we can in certain
instances--and probably John is right in his interpretation of "blo" and
"recently"--but only in manuscripts that have relatively clear instances
of revision. Look for instance at an early draft of a poem by Yeats: one
would have to say that more remains invisible than is actually visible.
But reconstructing the unfinished lines and phrases is just impossible
for the simple reason that there is no invisible underlying text; there
is just fragmented, incomplete text. The words were never there. Then
there are also the contradictory "instructions" that may be present in
the manuscript (just imagine the editor who edits the work of a text
that has only survived in near-fair copies, as was the case with Wilfred
Own for instance.) For these reasons, Daniel Ferrer speaks of a
manuscript not as a text, but of a protocol for writing. And what if the
change from "blo[ody]" in Melville was not a conscious act of revision
but the correction of lapsus: what if he wanted and intended to write
"recently" in the first place, but began writing "bloody"--or any other
word starting with "blo", "blowing", "blotted" etc.--just because he was
distracted or absent-minded for a moment. (We all do this often, write
one word where we mean another, and in my case these words sometimes
don't even fit the context at all. Similarly, it often happens to me
that I want to walk to a particular place, say the grocery store, but
start walking in the exact opposite direction, say the tube
station--Alzheimers is setting in early!) Such a lapsus may be
interesting--even meaningful--from a psychological perspective; it may
shed light on the composition practices of the author. But it also lays
bare the inherent dangers in making explicit the invisible text. 

Wim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: The list of the European Society for Textual 
> Scholarship and the Society for Textual Scholarship 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Bryant
> Sent: 22 March 2007 21:06
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Texts as cultural objects
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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.
> 
> The example I used last week was in Melville's Typee MS.  At 
> one point in the "text" concerning sacrificial offerings we 
> find "the relics of some blo [strikeout blo] recent sacrifice."  
> 
> This phrase reaches print as
> "the relics of some recent sacrifice."
> 
> But in reality (such as it is), HM first wrote "blo" with the 
> idea of writing "bloody sacrifice" OR "bloody recent sacrifice"
> 
> He changed his mind mid-bloody, crossed out "blo" and then 
> went on to finish his new image "recent sacrifice"
> 
> I would argue that "bloody sacrifice" is a "text" that 
> existed as a wording in HM's mind, much like Tanselle's 
> notion of "text" as a conceptual not material thing.  It is 
> an invisible text of revision in my parlance, a wording not 
> fully transcribed but one that clearly existed conceptually.  
> And these kinds of "text" appear throughout any rough draft 
> manuscript.  
> 
> So these are texts that only an editor can make visible or 
> material by writing them out in book objects for readers who 
> are interested in reading a work in revision.
> 
> So is this "invisible" thing a text, or an object, or a 
> cultural object?
>  I tend to think it is the first and last of these three.  It 
> is cultural in the sense that any moment of revision may 
> triggered by the writer interacting with a culture.  When HM 
> decides in a split second not to write "bloody," he may be 
> reacting to a projected audience need or restriction; he is 
> bending as well to his own rhetorical strategy. 
> And once you have evidence of a reader response imbedded in 
> an authorial moment, it seems to me you have a culture to 
> contend with.
> 
> Book history can deal with such textual cultural matters as revision. 
> Revision is an authorial but also a cultural process, just 
> like other book related processes, like production and 
> consumption, which, as process, are inherently "invisible."
> yrs,
> John Bryant
> 
> ___________
> John Bryant, English Department, Hofstra University, 
> Hempstead, NY 11549
> >>> "Dan O'Donnell" <[log in to unmask]> 03/22/07 3:56 PM >>>
> On Thu, 2007-22-03 at 16:57 +0000, Barbara Bordalejo wrote:
> > The problem with "texts as cultural objects" is that it is 
> very vague, 
> > so much so that I feel I have to ask you what exactly do 
> you mean by 
> > it.
> 
> Well I don't mean anything exact, because I don't think it is exactly
> definable: like porn, Book History is something you know when 
> you see it. I guess the closest I'd come to a exclusive 
> definition is: 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 accept, however, that the definition implied a clear 
> delimitation.  
> > That is why I liked it. Vague terms lead to confusion and to the 
> > danger of creating pseudo-disciplines.
> 
> I'm not sure that's really the case: in fact, I'd argue that 
> "What is Book History" is a useful question only if it is 
> being used inclusively--i.e. to discover what it is we do 
> that makes us think we are doing book history--rather than 
> exclusively--i.e. to discover what it is the others are doing 
> that puts them on the outside. Otherwise you end up with 
> those barren debates we used to have in classics class about 
> whether something was a dative of advantage or reference. 
> These terms are useful when considering inclusively all the 
> various things a dative can do; but less useful when you try 
> rule exclusively whether a particular example belong in one 
> or the other category. I don't think there is necessarily a 
> sharp line that says "this is book history and this is not."
> 
> > Now, what is that common end we are working towards? I 
> would like to 
> > be aware, so I can do my part. ;-)
> 
> The common goal is the study of texts as cultural objects. QED. ;)
> 
> > 
> > 
> > BB
> > 
> > 
> > On 22 Mar 2007, at 16:29, Dan O'Donnell wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Not having been at the roundtable, I can't comment 
> directly--but it 
> > > seems to me the non-material definition is unfortunately 
> limiting. I 
> > > prefer the study of texts as cultural objects. It seems to me that
> the
> > > great power of Book History in the last fifteen years or 
> so has been 
> > > the way it managed to overcome aspects of the culture 
> wars from the 
> > > 1990s by turning the discussion among philologists, textual 
> > > scholars, and
> less
> > > materially oriented theorists and critics to a less zero sum
> argument
> > > than it once had been: now we are at least arguably 
> working towards
> a
> > > common end.
> > >
> > > --
> > > 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/
> > >
> --
> 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/
>