D. C. Greetham
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119937
- eISBN:
- 9780191671265
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119937.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Theories of the Text is a comprehensive account of the changing practice of bibliography, textual criticism, and scholarly editing in the light of the diverse currents of contemporary ...
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Theories of the Text is a comprehensive account of the changing practice of bibliography, textual criticism, and scholarly editing in the light of the diverse currents of contemporary critical theory. It offers both an introduction to the history of textual debate and an account of the current debates over such issues as authorial intention, textual organicism, the socialization of the text, and intertextuality. Despite the positivist tradition of textual scholarship, the author argues, such work is a hermeneutic activity taking place within certain (usually unacknowledged) social and cultural conceptual constraints.Less
Theories of the Text is a comprehensive account of the changing practice of bibliography, textual criticism, and scholarly editing in the light of the diverse currents of contemporary critical theory. It offers both an introduction to the history of textual debate and an account of the current debates over such issues as authorial intention, textual organicism, the socialization of the text, and intertextuality. Despite the positivist tradition of textual scholarship, the author argues, such work is a hermeneutic activity taking place within certain (usually unacknowledged) social and cultural conceptual constraints.
D. C. Greetham
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119937
- eISBN:
- 9780191671265
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119937.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on the changing status of the sociology of text during the last decade or so to show that textual theory and practice reflect the prevailing cultural dominants. It further ...
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This chapter focuses on the changing status of the sociology of text during the last decade or so to show that textual theory and practice reflect the prevailing cultural dominants. It further discusses the evolution of text in relation to the societal evolution and in light of the various social theories. Eclecticism was described as a cognitive system of representation, whereby the subject – in this case both the editor and the reader of the edition – freely internalized an appropriate ‘picture’ of the phenomenological and cultural world. Ideology in this sense of a mode of cognition shared by a culture is obviously much more effective as a shaper of behaviour and thought than a system of legal constraints would be. The chapter also points out exemplary moments in the history of Marxist thought where the concerns of textuality as understood by editors and textual scholars finds significant expression, as well as a discussion of social textual criticism.Less
This chapter focuses on the changing status of the sociology of text during the last decade or so to show that textual theory and practice reflect the prevailing cultural dominants. It further discusses the evolution of text in relation to the societal evolution and in light of the various social theories. Eclecticism was described as a cognitive system of representation, whereby the subject – in this case both the editor and the reader of the edition – freely internalized an appropriate ‘picture’ of the phenomenological and cultural world. Ideology in this sense of a mode of cognition shared by a culture is obviously much more effective as a shaper of behaviour and thought than a system of legal constraints would be. The chapter also points out exemplary moments in the history of Marxist thought where the concerns of textuality as understood by editors and textual scholars finds significant expression, as well as a discussion of social textual criticism.
Kiichiro Itsumi
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199229611
- eISBN:
- 9780191710780
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199229611.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book describes the metrical features of the twenty-two Pindaric epinikia which are not composed in dactylo-epitrite (‘the other half’). These odes are puzzling, and scholars currently assume, ...
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This book describes the metrical features of the twenty-two Pindaric epinikia which are not composed in dactylo-epitrite (‘the other half’). These odes are puzzling, and scholars currently assume, without detailed examination, that they are all composed in a single type of metre which is often called ‘aeolic’. The book argues that there are in fact two types of metre (Pindaric epinikia are not as polymetric as the odes of tragedy), and divides the metrical styles of the stanza-forms of the ‘other half’ into three groups, according to the way in which these two metres are knitted together. This is the main theme of Part I. Part II consists of metrical commentaries. The structure of each stanza-form is analysed and compared with others, and abundant metrical parallels are provided, both for the individual verses and for the stanza-form as a whole. In a few passages textual problems are also discussed, for metrical study is in part an auxiliary discipline of textual criticism. In particular, metrical understanding is essential when one has to judge whether or not exact responsion may be broken in a particular metrical position. In an Appendix to this Part, the metrical features of the major fragments (most of which are Paeans) and their characteristics are also described. With its clear identification of a series of precise entities from which Pindar's verses are made, the book's study as a whole imposes a new clarity and discipline on what had previously seemed a much vaguer process.Less
This book describes the metrical features of the twenty-two Pindaric epinikia which are not composed in dactylo-epitrite (‘the other half’). These odes are puzzling, and scholars currently assume, without detailed examination, that they are all composed in a single type of metre which is often called ‘aeolic’. The book argues that there are in fact two types of metre (Pindaric epinikia are not as polymetric as the odes of tragedy), and divides the metrical styles of the stanza-forms of the ‘other half’ into three groups, according to the way in which these two metres are knitted together. This is the main theme of Part I. Part II consists of metrical commentaries. The structure of each stanza-form is analysed and compared with others, and abundant metrical parallels are provided, both for the individual verses and for the stanza-form as a whole. In a few passages textual problems are also discussed, for metrical study is in part an auxiliary discipline of textual criticism. In particular, metrical understanding is essential when one has to judge whether or not exact responsion may be broken in a particular metrical position. In an Appendix to this Part, the metrical features of the major fragments (most of which are Paeans) and their characteristics are also described. With its clear identification of a series of precise entities from which Pindar's verses are made, the book's study as a whole imposes a new clarity and discipline on what had previously seemed a much vaguer process.
Jerome J. McGann
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198117506
- eISBN:
- 9780191670961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117506.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The first chapter demonstrates the fundamental importance of textual studies to hermeneutics generally and to the specific act of criticism in particular. It assumes that literary study surrendered ...
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The first chapter demonstrates the fundamental importance of textual studies to hermeneutics generally and to the specific act of criticism in particular. It assumes that literary study surrendered some of its most powerful interpretive tools when it allowed textual criticism and bibliography to be regarded as ‘preliminary’ rather than integral to the study of literary work. It argues that the non-integral view of textual criticism and bibliography is historically explicable. It also attempts both an exposition of this view of textual criticism and bibliography as well as a critique of its limits.Less
The first chapter demonstrates the fundamental importance of textual studies to hermeneutics generally and to the specific act of criticism in particular. It assumes that literary study surrendered some of its most powerful interpretive tools when it allowed textual criticism and bibliography to be regarded as ‘preliminary’ rather than integral to the study of literary work. It argues that the non-integral view of textual criticism and bibliography is historically explicable. It also attempts both an exposition of this view of textual criticism and bibliography as well as a critique of its limits.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
The relationship between eighteenth-century Shakespearian textual criticism and its classical and scriptural relatives has sometimes been approached from a rather misleading angle. Some attention has ...
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The relationship between eighteenth-century Shakespearian textual criticism and its classical and scriptural relatives has sometimes been approached from a rather misleading angle. Some attention has been paid to the derivation of early Shakespearian editorial procedures from classical scholarship. The need to understand attitudes towards the re-editing of vernacular texts in the context of attitudes towards classical and scriptural editing is clear, if only because scholars working on English texts so often compared Shakespearian textual criticism to its classical and scriptural counterparts. Lewis Theobald expressed the hope that the editing of English texts might render the same service to the English language that classical textual criticism had performed for standards of Greek and Latin, and declared his intention of modelling his edition of William Shakespeare on Richard Bentley's Amsterdam edition of Horace.Less
The relationship between eighteenth-century Shakespearian textual criticism and its classical and scriptural relatives has sometimes been approached from a rather misleading angle. Some attention has been paid to the derivation of early Shakespearian editorial procedures from classical scholarship. The need to understand attitudes towards the re-editing of vernacular texts in the context of attitudes towards classical and scriptural editing is clear, if only because scholars working on English texts so often compared Shakespearian textual criticism to its classical and scriptural counterparts. Lewis Theobald expressed the hope that the editing of English texts might render the same service to the English language that classical textual criticism had performed for standards of Greek and Latin, and declared his intention of modelling his edition of William Shakespeare on Richard Bentley's Amsterdam edition of Horace.
D. C. Greetham
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119937
- eISBN:
- 9780191671265
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119937.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter begins by the author's use of the story ‘Poem is Whitman's. Is the Voice?’ in presenting the argument that who is speaking matters because intention is, or is not, a valid concern for ...
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This chapter begins by the author's use of the story ‘Poem is Whitman's. Is the Voice?’ in presenting the argument that who is speaking matters because intention is, or is not, a valid concern for textual criticism, dependent in part on whether there in an author, a voice, whose presence can be inferred from the text. The chapter further discusses that the term voice, even when used in grammatical terminology, is a metaphor inferring by analogy the intent of the subject from the structure of the predicate. It then presents the problem confronted by the textual and literary critic – the artefactual status of the object or ‘whatness’ – and makes a distinction between ‘motives’ and ‘intentions’. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the different views on intention in text espoused by various theorists, the criticisms and problems faced by each, and the argument that Edmund Husserl's definition of consciousness as a movement toward an ‘intentional object’ could provide valuable insight into the rationale and procedure for intentionalist editing.Less
This chapter begins by the author's use of the story ‘Poem is Whitman's. Is the Voice?’ in presenting the argument that who is speaking matters because intention is, or is not, a valid concern for textual criticism, dependent in part on whether there in an author, a voice, whose presence can be inferred from the text. The chapter further discusses that the term voice, even when used in grammatical terminology, is a metaphor inferring by analogy the intent of the subject from the structure of the predicate. It then presents the problem confronted by the textual and literary critic – the artefactual status of the object or ‘whatness’ – and makes a distinction between ‘motives’ and ‘intentions’. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the different views on intention in text espoused by various theorists, the criticisms and problems faced by each, and the argument that Edmund Husserl's definition of consciousness as a movement toward an ‘intentional object’ could provide valuable insight into the rationale and procedure for intentionalist editing.
D. C. Greetham
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198119937
- eISBN:
- 9780191671265
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198119937.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter tries to do an essay, ‘[Textual] Criticism and Deconstruction’, to show deconstruction in action, in a version of its poetics probably somewhere between imitation and parody. It posits ...
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This chapter tries to do an essay, ‘[Textual] Criticism and Deconstruction’, to show deconstruction in action, in a version of its poetics probably somewhere between imitation and parody. It posits that a deconstructive inversion of violent hierarchies is quite compatible with the history of textual criticism. It provides ‘textual’ glosses on some of the familiar terms of deconstruction. It also argues that Tanselle has himself deconstructed Deconstruction by rewriting the text of the book, exposing its aporia, and inverting the ‘text’/‘work’ hierarchy of the deconstructors.Less
This chapter tries to do an essay, ‘[Textual] Criticism and Deconstruction’, to show deconstruction in action, in a version of its poetics probably somewhere between imitation and parody. It posits that a deconstructive inversion of violent hierarchies is quite compatible with the history of textual criticism. It provides ‘textual’ glosses on some of the familiar terms of deconstruction. It also argues that Tanselle has himself deconstructed Deconstruction by rewriting the text of the book, exposing its aporia, and inverting the ‘text’/‘work’ hierarchy of the deconstructors.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
The last decade has seen a dramatic expansion of scholarly interest in the history of William Shakespeare and his work, not only in print or on the stage but also in the media and arts. Interest in ...
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The last decade has seen a dramatic expansion of scholarly interest in the history of William Shakespeare and his work, not only in print or on the stage but also in the media and arts. Interest in the history of Shakespeare's text after the publication of the First Folio in 1623 has also experienced a modest revival. The re-evaluation of the afterlife of Shakespeare's text cannot be separated either from the transformation of Shakespearian textual criticism itself which has taken place over the last fifteen years, or from the reconsideration of the theoretical grounding of textual criticism which has accompanied it. This book briefly sketches some of the reasons for the collapse of any consensus, based on Sir Walter Greg and Fredson Bowers among others, as to the proper aims and methods of textual criticism, before going on to consider the implications of this collapse for historians of editing.Less
The last decade has seen a dramatic expansion of scholarly interest in the history of William Shakespeare and his work, not only in print or on the stage but also in the media and arts. Interest in the history of Shakespeare's text after the publication of the First Folio in 1623 has also experienced a modest revival. The re-evaluation of the afterlife of Shakespeare's text cannot be separated either from the transformation of Shakespearian textual criticism itself which has taken place over the last fifteen years, or from the reconsideration of the theoretical grounding of textual criticism which has accompanied it. This book briefly sketches some of the reasons for the collapse of any consensus, based on Sir Walter Greg and Fredson Bowers among others, as to the proper aims and methods of textual criticism, before going on to consider the implications of this collapse for historians of editing.
S. Talmon
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- April 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780198263913
- eISBN:
- 9780191601187
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198263910.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This is the first of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament. It focuses on textual criticism of the ancient versions of the Old Testament, pointing out that no other ancient or modern text ...
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This is the first of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament. It focuses on textual criticism of the ancient versions of the Old Testament, pointing out that no other ancient or modern text seems to be witnessed by so many diverse sources in a variety of languages, and has a transmission history so difficult to elucidate as the text of the Hebrew Bible. The essay offers a necessarily restricted survey of the early transmission history of the biblical text in manuscript form up to the crystallization of an incipient unified Hebrew text and the appearance of translations of the Hebrew original into other Semitic and non‐Semitic languages between c.200 bce and 300 ce; invariably, later secondary translations are not considered. Attention focuses on the early stages of the written transmission of the consonantal text with emphasis on a concise review of the information on its history, which can be obtained from two quite dissimilar groups of manuscript remains in respect to chronology and socio‐religious provenance: (a) the assemblage of biblical scrolls and scroll fragments (the Dead Sea Scrolls) brought to light since 1947 that the dissident ‘Community of the Renewed Covenant’ had deposited in caves near a site known by the modern Arabic name of Qumran; and (b) fragments found since the 1950s at other sites in the Judaean Desert—Masada, Wadi Murabba’at, Naḥal Ṣe‚elim (Wadi Seiyāl) , and Naḥal Ḥever, which represent the textual tradition of normative Judaism.Less
This is the first of five chapters on the text of the Old Testament. It focuses on textual criticism of the ancient versions of the Old Testament, pointing out that no other ancient or modern text seems to be witnessed by so many diverse sources in a variety of languages, and has a transmission history so difficult to elucidate as the text of the Hebrew Bible. The essay offers a necessarily restricted survey of the early transmission history of the biblical text in manuscript form up to the crystallization of an incipient unified Hebrew text and the appearance of translations of the Hebrew original into other Semitic and non‐Semitic languages between c.200 bce and 300 ce; invariably, later secondary translations are not considered. Attention focuses on the early stages of the written transmission of the consonantal text with emphasis on a concise review of the information on its history, which can be obtained from two quite dissimilar groups of manuscript remains in respect to chronology and socio‐religious provenance: (a) the assemblage of biblical scrolls and scroll fragments (the Dead Sea Scrolls) brought to light since 1947 that the dissident ‘Community of the Renewed Covenant’ had deposited in caves near a site known by the modern Arabic name of Qumran; and (b) fragments found since the 1950s at other sites in the Judaean Desert—Masada, Wadi Murabba’at, Naḥal Ṣe‚elim (Wadi Seiyāl) , and Naḥal Ḥever, which represent the textual tradition of normative Judaism.
Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780691169880
- eISBN:
- 9780691184463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691169880.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter evaluates the modern scholarship on the pericope adulterae. Debates about the pericope adulterae have been central to the development of both modern textual criticism and ...
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This chapter evaluates the modern scholarship on the pericope adulterae. Debates about the pericope adulterae have been central to the development of both modern textual criticism and historical-critical approaches to the Gospels, as these disciplines emerged in the nineteenth century. When nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars advocated for the necessity of correcting ancient scribal error, they did so in part on the basis of this pericope, which was relegated to brackets or margins and thereby effectively removed from the canonical Gospel of John. The displacement of this story, as well as a few other passages, was inextricably linked to a new scientific approach to textual editing that finally overturned the Textus Receptus, the Greek text that had been employed in Europe since the Renaissance.Less
This chapter evaluates the modern scholarship on the pericope adulterae. Debates about the pericope adulterae have been central to the development of both modern textual criticism and historical-critical approaches to the Gospels, as these disciplines emerged in the nineteenth century. When nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars advocated for the necessity of correcting ancient scribal error, they did so in part on the basis of this pericope, which was relegated to brackets or margins and thereby effectively removed from the canonical Gospel of John. The displacement of this story, as well as a few other passages, was inextricably linked to a new scientific approach to textual editing that finally overturned the Textus Receptus, the Greek text that had been employed in Europe since the Renaissance.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
The complex character of Samuel Johnson's defence of the value of textual criticism and his conception of the literary labour of the textual critic is reflected in his editorial practice. Johnson's ...
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The complex character of Samuel Johnson's defence of the value of textual criticism and his conception of the literary labour of the textual critic is reflected in his editorial practice. Johnson's edition is unprecedented in the extent of its desire to serve less as a display of the editor's own gentlemanly ease, painstaking labour, or comprehensive qualifications, than as a collection and summation of all previous editions. As with other eighteenth-century editors of William Shakespeare, Johnson's editing cannot be surveyed as if from the standpoint of a finally scientific understanding of textual criticism and found wanting or merely accidentally inconsistent. At first glance, Johnson's idea of the editor's task has much in common with William Warburton's. His depiction of Lewis Theobald, for example, is cast in terms surprisingly similar to Warburton's.Less
The complex character of Samuel Johnson's defence of the value of textual criticism and his conception of the literary labour of the textual critic is reflected in his editorial practice. Johnson's edition is unprecedented in the extent of its desire to serve less as a display of the editor's own gentlemanly ease, painstaking labour, or comprehensive qualifications, than as a collection and summation of all previous editions. As with other eighteenth-century editors of William Shakespeare, Johnson's editing cannot be surveyed as if from the standpoint of a finally scientific understanding of textual criticism and found wanting or merely accidentally inconsistent. At first glance, Johnson's idea of the editor's task has much in common with William Warburton's. His depiction of Lewis Theobald, for example, is cast in terms surprisingly similar to Warburton's.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
A central argument of this book has been that neither the rise of historicist approaches to the idea of linguistic correctness nor the advent of bibliographically grounded approaches to textual ...
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A central argument of this book has been that neither the rise of historicist approaches to the idea of linguistic correctness nor the advent of bibliographically grounded approaches to textual criticism can be understood if they are taken as the inventions of accidentally enlightened pioneers, on the one hand, or as the symptoms of the descent of an ‘Enlightenment’ epistemological world-view or schema, on the other. Instead, both of these shifts in philological practice are inseparably bound up with the changing representations of literary labour in general, and of the labour of minute criticism in particular. In addition, the first editor to print a text of William Shakespeare abandoning the textus receptus as the source of copy-text was Edward Capell. If one is to locate the sudden break between pre-enlightened and enlightened practices of textual criticism it should surely be with Capell's work.Less
A central argument of this book has been that neither the rise of historicist approaches to the idea of linguistic correctness nor the advent of bibliographically grounded approaches to textual criticism can be understood if they are taken as the inventions of accidentally enlightened pioneers, on the one hand, or as the symptoms of the descent of an ‘Enlightenment’ epistemological world-view or schema, on the other. Instead, both of these shifts in philological practice are inseparably bound up with the changing representations of literary labour in general, and of the labour of minute criticism in particular. In addition, the first editor to print a text of William Shakespeare abandoning the textus receptus as the source of copy-text was Edward Capell. If one is to locate the sudden break between pre-enlightened and enlightened practices of textual criticism it should surely be with Capell's work.
H. A. G. Houghton
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199545926
- eISBN:
- 9780191719974
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199545926.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This chapter considers the types of evidence Augustine provides for the text of the New Testament. His explicit comments on variants in New Testament manuscripts and corrections to the biblical ...
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This chapter considers the types of evidence Augustine provides for the text of the New Testament. His explicit comments on variants in New Testament manuscripts and corrections to the biblical citations of his opponents are, along with primary citations, the most important for determining the readings of the codices known to him. Anticipating later parts of the book, his citations of John are compared with the Old Latin, Vulgate and Greek traditions of the Gospel. Forms identical to other Church Fathers may preserve a version now lost, but they could also be due to independent ‘flattening’ of the text. Some Old Latin readings are fossilized in Augustine's mental text, and a few verses also offer important evidence for the Greek text, but it seems unlikely that Augustine was ever acquainted with the Diatessaron.Less
This chapter considers the types of evidence Augustine provides for the text of the New Testament. His explicit comments on variants in New Testament manuscripts and corrections to the biblical citations of his opponents are, along with primary citations, the most important for determining the readings of the codices known to him. Anticipating later parts of the book, his citations of John are compared with the Old Latin, Vulgate and Greek traditions of the Gospel. Forms identical to other Church Fathers may preserve a version now lost, but they could also be due to independent ‘flattening’ of the text. Some Old Latin readings are fossilized in Augustine's mental text, and a few verses also offer important evidence for the Greek text, but it seems unlikely that Augustine was ever acquainted with the Diatessaron.
Simon Jarvis
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182955
- eISBN:
- 9780191673924
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182955.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
The fullest account of the social and political significance of Samuel Johnson's writings about language – that by John Barrell in his Equal, Wide, Survey – points to an apparent contradiction in ...
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The fullest account of the social and political significance of Samuel Johnson's writings about language – that by John Barrell in his Equal, Wide, Survey – points to an apparent contradiction in Johnson's account of English usage. Barrell argues that Johnson ‘regards the national language as derived from a world apart from and above the languages of those who follow particular callings’, but also refuses to specify any group of language users who might be thought to inhabit such a world. These suggestions are significant, both for the way in which Johnson thought about and used the illustrative quotations which were the decisively new feature of his Dictionary, and for the close relationship in Johnson's philological career between lexicography and textual criticism. A problem of circularity attends any attempt to define a community of authoritative users of a language, and Johnson's is no exception.Less
The fullest account of the social and political significance of Samuel Johnson's writings about language – that by John Barrell in his Equal, Wide, Survey – points to an apparent contradiction in Johnson's account of English usage. Barrell argues that Johnson ‘regards the national language as derived from a world apart from and above the languages of those who follow particular callings’, but also refuses to specify any group of language users who might be thought to inhabit such a world. These suggestions are significant, both for the way in which Johnson thought about and used the illustrative quotations which were the decisively new feature of his Dictionary, and for the close relationship in Johnson's philological career between lexicography and textual criticism. A problem of circularity attends any attempt to define a community of authoritative users of a language, and Johnson's is no exception.
David McKitterick
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197262788
- eISBN:
- 9780191754210
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262788.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
Don McKenzie, Professor of English Language and Literature at Victoria University of Wellington and later Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism at Oxford, argued for the place of ...
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Don McKenzie, Professor of English Language and Literature at Victoria University of Wellington and later Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism at Oxford, argued for the place of bibliography at the centre of literary and historical understanding. The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712: a bibliographical study (1966) led to a transformation of bibliographical studies. McKenzie edited the plays of Congreve and was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1980 while he was still living in New Zealand. After moving to Oxford, he was elected Fellow in 1986. Obituary by David McKitterick FBA.Less
Don McKenzie, Professor of English Language and Literature at Victoria University of Wellington and later Professor of Bibliography and Textual Criticism at Oxford, argued for the place of bibliography at the centre of literary and historical understanding. The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712: a bibliographical study (1966) led to a transformation of bibliographical studies. McKenzie edited the plays of Congreve and was elected Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1980 while he was still living in New Zealand. After moving to Oxford, he was elected Fellow in 1986. Obituary by David McKitterick FBA.
Richard F. Thomas
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264348
- eISBN:
- 9780191734250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264348.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
David Roy Shackleton Bailey (1917–2005), a Fellow of the British Academy, was a prodigious scholar, a towering figure in textual criticism and the editing and translating of Latin literature, and a ...
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David Roy Shackleton Bailey (1917–2005), a Fellow of the British Academy, was a prodigious scholar, a towering figure in textual criticism and the editing and translating of Latin literature, and a brilliant student of Roman Republican history, prosopography, and society. His work amounts to some fifty volumes and more than 200 articles and reviews. Shackleton's own prose style, whether in translations of Cicero, justifying an emendation, or just in correspondence is a delight to read, and frequently quotable. Born in Lancaster on December 10, 1917 to Rosamund Maude Giles and John Henry, he had always been attracted to the poet Horace. However, Shackleton's name is most closely associated with that of Cicero, whose letters in their entirety and speeches selectively he edited, with translation and commentary.Less
David Roy Shackleton Bailey (1917–2005), a Fellow of the British Academy, was a prodigious scholar, a towering figure in textual criticism and the editing and translating of Latin literature, and a brilliant student of Roman Republican history, prosopography, and society. His work amounts to some fifty volumes and more than 200 articles and reviews. Shackleton's own prose style, whether in translations of Cicero, justifying an emendation, or just in correspondence is a delight to read, and frequently quotable. Born in Lancaster on December 10, 1917 to Rosamund Maude Giles and John Henry, he had always been attracted to the poet Horace. However, Shackleton's name is most closely associated with that of Cicero, whose letters in their entirety and speeches selectively he edited, with translation and commentary.
Kathryn Sutherland (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198236634
- eISBN:
- 9780191679315
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198236634.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Since the 1950s, when Roland Barthes re-expressed the formalist ideal of an open-ended text, there has been much interest among literary critics and theorists of text in the question of what text is ...
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Since the 1950s, when Roland Barthes re-expressed the formalist ideal of an open-ended text, there has been much interest among literary critics and theorists of text in the question of what text is and what it gives us access to. The computer storage and electronic dissemination of texts adds a new controversy to the debate: what is the significance of the electronic text for the representation and transmission of knowledge? In its functions as multi-text storer and in its capacity to weave, unweave, and reweave text, the computer lends itself to a variety of later 20th-century theoretic and cultural practices, from the decomposing strategies of deconstructive criticism to the date-dense contextualism of criticisms of postmodernism, coming from new historicism, cultural anthropology, and post-Marxism. The chapters in this book examine the impact of electronic technology on literary and textual studies. They ask how the computer is being used to reshape ideas of text, of authorship, of a literary canon, of authenticity and value as embodied in this book. The chapters combine approaches from literary theory, the philosophy of text, feminist theory, and textual criticism. Topics include interactive Shakespeare, the poetry of Laetitia Landon, Mark Twain and hypertext, and the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.Less
Since the 1950s, when Roland Barthes re-expressed the formalist ideal of an open-ended text, there has been much interest among literary critics and theorists of text in the question of what text is and what it gives us access to. The computer storage and electronic dissemination of texts adds a new controversy to the debate: what is the significance of the electronic text for the representation and transmission of knowledge? In its functions as multi-text storer and in its capacity to weave, unweave, and reweave text, the computer lends itself to a variety of later 20th-century theoretic and cultural practices, from the decomposing strategies of deconstructive criticism to the date-dense contextualism of criticisms of postmodernism, coming from new historicism, cultural anthropology, and post-Marxism. The chapters in this book examine the impact of electronic technology on literary and textual studies. They ask how the computer is being used to reshape ideas of text, of authorship, of a literary canon, of authenticity and value as embodied in this book. The chapters combine approaches from literary theory, the philosophy of text, feminist theory, and textual criticism. Topics include interactive Shakespeare, the poetry of Laetitia Landon, Mark Twain and hypertext, and the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
Matthew Thiessen
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199793563
- eISBN:
- 9780199914456
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199793563.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Chapter One provides a careful treatment of the role circumcision plays in Genesis 17. The first part of the chapter provides a detailed text-critical argument that all modern Bibles and the majority ...
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Chapter One provides a careful treatment of the role circumcision plays in Genesis 17. The first part of the chapter provides a detailed text-critical argument that all modern Bibles and the majority of critical scholarship wrongly follow the Masoretic Text’s reading of Genesis 17:14 instead of the reading preserved by the Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, and the book of Jubilees, which requires that covenantal circumcision take place on the eighth day after birth. Consequently, modern readers have failed to understand how Ishmael can undergo circumcision, the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, and yet remain outside of that covenant. This chapter argues that Ishmael’s circumcision at the age of thirteen indicates that he is not a member in Abraham’s covenantal seed, and therefore he has no share in that covenant.Less
Chapter One provides a careful treatment of the role circumcision plays in Genesis 17. The first part of the chapter provides a detailed text-critical argument that all modern Bibles and the majority of critical scholarship wrongly follow the Masoretic Text’s reading of Genesis 17:14 instead of the reading preserved by the Septuagint, Samaritan Pentateuch, and the book of Jubilees, which requires that covenantal circumcision take place on the eighth day after birth. Consequently, modern readers have failed to understand how Ishmael can undergo circumcision, the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, and yet remain outside of that covenant. This chapter argues that Ishmael’s circumcision at the age of thirteen indicates that he is not a member in Abraham’s covenantal seed, and therefore he has no share in that covenant.
Jerome J. McGann
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198117506
- eISBN:
- 9780191670961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117506.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Textual criticism, in the traditional sense, is an analytic discipline separated into two provinces, the so-called Lower and Higher Criticism. Its practitioners are those guardians of the dry bones, ...
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Textual criticism, in the traditional sense, is an analytic discipline separated into two provinces, the so-called Lower and Higher Criticism. Its practitioners are those guardians of the dry bones, the editors, bibliograpliers, and philologists of various sorts who are best known to the ordinary student of literature for the work they do not do: that is, interpretation and literary criticism. To study literature in the contexts of its origins and its later historical development is to free the reader from the ignorance of his presentness. There can be no present or future, in life or in art, if the past is not a living reality in its pastness. Editors, bibliographers, textual critics, and pedants of all sorts hold the keys in their hands, the keys to the kingdom not merely of literature, but of all human culture.Less
Textual criticism, in the traditional sense, is an analytic discipline separated into two provinces, the so-called Lower and Higher Criticism. Its practitioners are those guardians of the dry bones, the editors, bibliograpliers, and philologists of various sorts who are best known to the ordinary student of literature for the work they do not do: that is, interpretation and literary criticism. To study literature in the contexts of its origins and its later historical development is to free the reader from the ignorance of his presentness. There can be no present or future, in life or in art, if the past is not a living reality in its pastness. Editors, bibliographers, textual critics, and pedants of all sorts hold the keys in their hands, the keys to the kingdom not merely of literature, but of all human culture.
David C. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199657810
- eISBN:
- 9780191744860
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657810.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, History of Christianity
As a result of the advent of the computer, the concept and realization of critical editions are being rethought. This book, originally the Lyell Lectures in Bibliography at Oxford University, ...
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As a result of the advent of the computer, the concept and realization of critical editions are being rethought. This book, originally the Lyell Lectures in Bibliography at Oxford University, explores textual criticism and editing in the digital age. It argues that textual scholarship has been an important influence in the development of the concept of the ‘New Testament’. Starting with the observation that a text is a process, not an object, the book proposes a new way of understanding the relationship between documents, texts, and the work they represent as the basis for critical scholarship. This leads him to challenge the idea of a ‘Greek New Testament manuscript’, and thus to reconsider the nature of the New Testament as a collection of works and the nature and purpose of critical editions. By studying new tools for studying how manuscripts are related to each other, he shows how the modern digital edition of the New Testament has overcome the impasses created by the failure of Lachmannian stemmatics to deal with the problem of contamination. Exploring the emergence of the critical edition in modern scholarship, Parker discusses the ways in which a digital edition advances scholarship and gives the reader more opportunities both to scrutinize the quality of the edition and to access the raw data on which it is based. The whole book uses New Testament research as a paradigm of wider changes in textual scholarship.Less
As a result of the advent of the computer, the concept and realization of critical editions are being rethought. This book, originally the Lyell Lectures in Bibliography at Oxford University, explores textual criticism and editing in the digital age. It argues that textual scholarship has been an important influence in the development of the concept of the ‘New Testament’. Starting with the observation that a text is a process, not an object, the book proposes a new way of understanding the relationship between documents, texts, and the work they represent as the basis for critical scholarship. This leads him to challenge the idea of a ‘Greek New Testament manuscript’, and thus to reconsider the nature of the New Testament as a collection of works and the nature and purpose of critical editions. By studying new tools for studying how manuscripts are related to each other, he shows how the modern digital edition of the New Testament has overcome the impasses created by the failure of Lachmannian stemmatics to deal with the problem of contamination. Exploring the emergence of the critical edition in modern scholarship, Parker discusses the ways in which a digital edition advances scholarship and gives the reader more opportunities both to scrutinize the quality of the edition and to access the raw data on which it is based. The whole book uses New Testament research as a paradigm of wider changes in textual scholarship.
