The Text as Process and the Problem of Intentionality (1987) (original) (raw)

The Text as Process and the Problem of Intentionality.

At a time in the history of scholarly editing in the twentieth century when «authorial intention» was still, under Anglo-American principles of editorial scholarship, a load-star for the realizing of critical editions, this essay set out to critique the implications of the intentional stance. It endeavoured to show that invoking intention, if valid at all for reaching editorial decisions and arriving at critically edited texts, could claim a theoretical foot-hold only in a conception of the closed and determinate text. A stance in theory recognizing and defining texts as open and indeterminate, by contrast, would needs also foreground texts as by nature processual. In the processes of realizing and modifying texts, «intentions » as expressed in variation and revision will form strings of authors’ readings of successive validity. If and when scholarly editing takes its guidance from the processual variability of texts, «authorial intention is [seen to be no longer] a metaphysical notion to be fulfilled but a textual force to be studied». How such an approach to the forming of scholarly editions might prove to support their critical function is indicated by sketches of examples from texts by Bertolt Brecht and Ezra Pound.

“Authorial Intention”: Some Thoughts on a Noble Lie of Scholarly Editing

Tekstualia

The article adresses the practice of critical editing in Poland. The author, Paweł Bem, calls for an evaluation of theoretical thought underlying the practice of establishing critical editions meant to refl ect an author’s intention, and promotes the New Philology paradigm for scholarly editing. The New Philology perspective provides a methodological background for handling each text as a unique artifact. Bem also advocates for respecting original spellings and opposes standard modernization practices in scholarly editing.

Meaning in a changing context: towards an interdisciplinary approach to authorial revision

Special Issue: Interdisciplinary History of Ideas , 2014

In this article, I seek to develop a genetic/diachronic approach to the phenomenon of authorial revision, and to the interpretation of texts that exist in multiple versions. In all such cases, the reconstruction of textual meaning cannot be separated from the reconstruction of the process through which the text in its ‘final’ form came into being; furthermore, an understanding of the author’s intentions in (re)writing cannot be entirely separated from an understanding of his/her motives for (re)writing. This article is divided into three sections. In the first section, I consider recent trends in editorial and literary theory that aim at characterising texts in terms of processes rather than products, in order to uphold the equal dignity of each version without losing sight of its connectedness to other stages in the history of the text. In the second section, I discuss how Quentin Skinner’s views on meaning and context apply to cases of authorial revision, and I suggest that some key aspects of Skinner’s contextualism need to be reconsidered. In the concluding section, I focus on a case study in order to demonstrate the operational value of such a genetic and motive-based approach to authorial revision: more particularly, I seek to show how a close examination of Jean Bodin’s rewriting practices in the Methodus (15661572) and the République (1576) can throw new light on his shift from a concept of limited sovereignty to one of absolute sovereignty.

Authorial Revision and Authoritative Texts: A Case for Discourse Stylistics and the Pied Bull Quarto

1992

King Lear has always been surrounded by textual problems, partly because there are two extant authoritative textual sources for the play, the so-called Pied Bull Quarto of 1608 and the First Folio of 1623.1 In recent years a controversy has emerged as to whether these two textual sources constitute two distinct versions of the play and whether it was Shakespeare himself who revised the Quarto King Lear in order to produce the Folio version of the play.

Authorial Revision & Authoritative Texts: a Case for Discourse Stylistics and the "Pied Bull Quarto

1992

There the matter must rest, while we wait for more positive arguments, if possible, from within the texts. (E. A. J. Honigmann, The Stability of Shakespeare's Text, p. 10) King Lear has always been surrounded by textual problems, partly because there are two extant authoritative textual sources for the play, the so-called Pied Bull Quarto of 1608 and the First Folio of 1623. 1 In recent years a controversy has emerged as to whether these two textual sources constitute two distinct versions of the play and whether it was Shakespeare himself who revised the Quarto King Lear in order to produce the Folio version of the play. This paper is an attempt to summarise the present state of the controversy and to show how a stylistic approach can be useful for textual 'And you lye, weele haue you whipt' (sig. D) 'And you lie sirrah, wee'l haue you whipt' (TLN 694