Bornstein and Williams 1993

Bornstein, George and Ralph G. Williams, eds. Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993.

Polymorphic, Polysemic, Protean, Reliable, Electronic Texts, by Peter L. Shillingsburg (29-44)

"A changing or changeable text, it probably goes without saying, is unstable and unreliable." (29)

• "concept of forms"
  • "Is the work of art equivalent to the linguistic text?"
  • "Is the work of art equivalent with the ideal or best version of it?"
• "how there might be truth to form"
• "how texts are vehicles for works" (31)

standard/established/definitive editions: "copied or reproduced only the signs of the text; they did not copy the format or material of source texts" (32)

"Text as Matter, Concept, and Action", by Shillingsburg

• "only access the reader ever has to the literary work of art is his or her own performance of it, and that therefore all critical statements about a work of art are statements relative to the critic's performance of the text" (32)
• all editions are "basically new production performances of the work rather than reproductions, restorations, or establishments of historical or pure Virgin Texts" (33)

"every new embodiment of a literary work of art is a new, additional, and altered embodiment of it" (33)

"rather than argue against the production of new editions -- that is, rejecting the argument that one should read works of art only in original editions -- it seems more reasonable to say that newness and differentness are not criticisms of scholarly editions, they are merely facts about them. Newness and differentness are, therefore, not more valid arguments against electronic editions than against print-form editions. They are conditions, however, that should be acknowledged by editors and readers alike, who often fail to distinguish between a copy of a work and the work itself." (34)

"single, best versions are not necessarily the most desirable forms for the study of works of literary art" (34)

"a work of art is NOT equivalent with a linguistic text of it and therefore changes every time it is embodied in a new medium even though the linguistic text is copied accurately; and, second, a work of art is NOT equivalent with a best version of it but rather is made more accessible in each of its versions by having alternative versions presented in conjunction with it" (35)

works "are processes, variable, textually indeterminate, and live. Each historical manifestation of the text had a context of origination and a complex of intentions not entirely indicated by the linguistic text but indexed also by its form. That aspect of works of art is not acknowledged by data-base texts. In so far as these concepts of electronic data-base texts are accurate, they are barely advances over printed anthologies and will, like their print-form ancestors, become a byword for textual incompetence." (37)

every copy is witness to its source -- not "the work itself" (37)

frightening idea:

• "perhaps the work is not made up of any particular words but, finding its expression in words of a variety of texts, the work is a spiritual presence that lives through earthen vessels and transcendes the limitations of any particular embodiment of it." (38)

"Perahps the work of art is a series of the work in the process of composition and revision and publication, each version having discrete temporal and intentional integrity though perhaps none actually achieving perfect embodiment in any manuscript or proof or publication." (40)

"strive for truth to the originals": "tha tis, we should avoid pretenidng that the new is the old by acting as if the new substituted for the old, stands for the old, or maks the old obsolete. Instead, acknowledging that the new is different, we should make information abuot the old a central concern of the new." (40)