The unstable measure of “criticalness” in scholarly editing

Abstract

The author discusses the erosion of the traditional concept of “criticalness” and related terminology from the perspective of practical scholarly editing. Considering the contemporary requirements of the publishing market (production economics, technological development) as well as scientific doubts about the former measure of “criticalness” in light of new trends in textual studies, it must be clearly stated that the traditional understanding of “critical (scholarly) edition” no longer meets current needs. We realise that striving to establish a “final version of the text” (the so-called “canonical text”), which was the goal of scholarly editing in the past, is an idée fixe that cannot be realised. Similarly, discovering the so-called “authorial intent” (creative intention) is a venerable myth of an anachronistic approach to textual criticism. According to suggestions in more recent studies, established concepts should now be approached with caution, and only the most important textual evidence should be taken into account when working on any “critical (scholarly) edition”, rather than all possible variants. The procedures for collation and transliteration of the text remain unchanged, so that the edition meets the basic requirements of “criticalness”.