Textual Criticism as a Pseudo-Science

Frederick Tupper Jr

doi:10.2307/456816

Textual Criticism as a Pseudo-Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020

Frederick Tupper Jr

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The Alexandrian followers of Aristarchus, buzzing in corners and busy with monosyllables, have left the world that they worried with their wranglings over and and , the swords that were drawn over inchoate verbs have been rust for centuries. But the bookworms of Aristarchus, the troops of Callimachus, the pack of Zenodotus return at times to earth. In order to hear this pack in full cry, we have only to recall the various emendations in Greek texts necessitated fifty years ago by the fallacious Dawes Canon that is never used with the first aorist subjunctive in the active or middle voice.

Type: Research Article
Information: PMLA , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 1910 , pp. 164 - 181

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/456816 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1910

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^{page 165 note 1} Companion to Greek Studies, p. 610.

^{page 166 note 1} Paul und Braunes Beiträge (PBB.), xxix, 305–331.

^{page 167 note 1} Of the copyist of the Beowulf, I shall say nothing, as every passage in that epic has already been discussed ad nauseam. Nor shall I draw any illustrations from the closing pages of the Exeter Book, as these are fully considered in my edition of the Riddles. One of the Old Testament poems of the so-called Cœdmon ms. (Junius, xi) in the Bodleian will come within our range.

^{page 167 note 2} “Der Schreiber war ratlos,” says Trautmann, Bonner Beiträge zur Anglistik (BB.), xxiii, 115, of the transcriber of the Andreas in the Vercelli Book. And yet that text is sometimes flawless for fifty lines together. B. Steidler of Bonn, in a recent eulogy of the Bonn methods (Anglia, Beiblatt, xx, 292–293) affirms:—“Gegen textbesserungen dieser art ist grundsätzlich nichts einzuwenden; denn die abschreiber haben unleugbar in fast allen altenglischen dichtungen sogenannte formwörtchen bald zugesetzt, bald weggelassen, und dadurch den versbau in unordnung gebracht.”

^{page 167 note 3} Trautmann, BB., xvii, 186.

^{page 167 note 4} Trautmann, BB., xxiii, 102–104.

^{page 167 note 5} Ib., 118, 120, 134.

^{page 167 note 6} Ib., 91.

^{page 167 note 7} Ib., 92.

^{page 167 note 8} Schlotterose's edition, BB., xxv, 62.

^{page 168 note 1} Schmidt's edition, BB., xxiii, 1 f.

^{page 168 note 2} There is nothing new, of course, in this sort of detective work. “Our celebrated author,” says Richard Bentley in that masterpiece of unconscious humor, the Preface to his edition of Milton (1732), “could only dictate his verses to be written by another; whence it necessarily follows that any errors in spelling, pointing, nay even in whole words of a like or near sound in pronunciation, are not to be charged upon the poet, but on the amanuensis.” And so quite in the manner of the new philological tinker of Old English verses, he vehemently alters not built (P. L., i, 251) to no butt, an oath (ii, 352) to a nod, alchymie (ii, 517) to orichale, vex (ii, 801) to hem, first (iii, 131) to fraud, embraces (v, 251) to branches, subtle art (vi, 513) to sooty chark, longitude (vii, 373) to long career, is judicious (viii, 391) to unlibidinous, to the ages (x, 647) to out of ashes, eat or drink (x, 728) to act or think. Can we doubt that the early Englishman would have been even more amused by recent versions of his text than we are by Bentley's arbitrary changes? Bentley did not go to the modern length of inserting these conjectures into the text itself. His scholarly instinct and training saved him from that.

^{page 169 note 1} The Junius version of the Daniel is in a more evil case; but Hofer has long since shown (Anglia, xii, 190) that the many discrepancies between this poem and its Exeter Book variant, the Azarias, are due not to scribal lapses but to a reworking of the original text by another hand.

^{page 169 note 2} Let us note the errors in the manuscript version of the Phœnix: fnœft for fnœst (15), fold- for flod- (64), wuniaÐ for waniaÐ (72), siÐne for sidne (103), -wrœee for þrœce (115), toheanes for togeanes, leoþres for hleoþres? (137), rene for grene (154), wudu for wuda (171), heofum for heofun (173), gehware for gehwam? (206), wœsmas for wœstmas (243), gefeon for gefean (248), gehwore for gehwone (336), wefiaÐ for wafiaÐ (342), sceates for sceata (396), idge seemingly corrupt (407), weordum for wordum (425), we for wel (443), eortan for heortan (447), sendaÐ for sendeÐ (488), lœdaÐ for lœdad (491), liges for lifes? (513), bliþam for bliþan (599), hearde for hearda (613), strenÐu for strengÐu (625), treow for treowe (641), onwœcned for onwœcneÐ (648), elpe for helpe (650), motum for motun (670), alma for almœ (673), mittem for mitem. Here are thirty natural slips which well illustrate the slight and venial nature of most scribal mistakes, and should be contrasted with the impossible blunders imputed to the copyist. Correct these obvious errors and we have an excellent text. Now let us turn to the editor. The unwarranted changes or corruptions in Schlotterose's text (BB., xxv) are somewhat more numerous and far more violent; compare Ph. 5, 10, 12, 17. 56, 61, 76, 78, 94, 144, 151, 155, 179, 191, 199, 217, 228, 233, 236, 247, 248, 251, 252, 262, 301, 306, 324, 330, 332, 364, 377, 404, 407, 408, 425, 512, 586, 599, 668. The least defensible of these emanate from the editor himself or from his master, Trautmann, as we shall see later.

^{page 170 note 1} BB., xxiii, 87–88.

^{page 171 note 1} BB., xxiii. 125.

^{page 171 note 2} Metrisch-Sprachliches und Textkritisches zu Cynewulfs Werken (Bonn Diss.), 1908, p. 29.

^{page 171 note 3} BB., xxv, 66.

^{page 171 note 4} BB., xxiii, 110.

^{page 171 note 5} Ib., 108.

^{page 173 note 1} BB., xxiii, 121.

^{page 173 note 2} BB., xxv, 58.

^{page 173 note 3} A similar lack of all poetic perspective is seen in Trautmann's gratuitous alteration (BB., xxii, 8) or the spirited line, Be Dōmes Dœge, 8, þurh winda gryre, wolcn wœs gehrēred to þurh winda styre. Wōp wœs gehrēred.

^{page 173 note 4} Ib., 20, 60.

^{page 173 note 5} BB., xxiii, 97.

^{page 173 note 6} Ib., 110 f.

^{page 173 note 7} Ib., 130.

^{page 174 note 1} Note Wilhelm Schmidt's readings (BB., xxiii) of Dan. 16, 25, 61, 101, 227, 233, 235, 263, 440, 607, and Schlotterose's substitutions (BB., xxv,) for Ph. 217, 236, 252, 301—in each and every case totally unwarranted.

^{page 174 note 2} Such ambiguity in the use of the third personal pronoun is very common in Anglo-Saxon poetry; cf. Beow., 747, 762, 804, 805, 2619, 2973–2976, Christ, 434–436, etc. Ten minutes' search will furnish as many more examples.

^{page 175 note 1} We meet the idiom in “Wulfstan's Voyage” in Ælfred's Orosius (Sweet, E. E. T. Soc., lxxix, 21, ll. 12–13). And gif þr man ān bān findeÐ , hī hit sceolan miclum gebētan. C. A. Smith cites in connection with this prose passage (Old English Reader, p. 110), Paul's Principien der Sprachgeschichte, § 451, “When a word is used as an indefinite, it is, strictly speaking, incapable of number.” Modern parallels are numerous.

^{page 175 note 2} BB., xxv, 62.

^{page 175 note 3} Ib., 67.

^{page 175 note 4} BB., xxiii, 97.

^{page 175 note 5} BB., xvii, 161–162.

^{page 175 note 6} In his note upon the Elene passage, Holthausen cites Koch, Hist. Gram., ii, § 71, 1 and Smith, Anglia, xxiii, 242.

^{page 176 note 1} BB., xvii, 175 f.

^{page 176 note 2} Admirably sane is Gerould's spirited protest against Trautmann's involved metrical system (Englische Studien, xli, 1909, 12):—“In the conditions of poetic production that prevailed in Northumbria or Mercia, it is inconceivable that the authors would be confined within the limits of such an artificial and elaborate science of metrics as has latterly been constructed for them. It is not scholarship, I submit, to blind oneself to such a plain fact as this, while analyzing with infinite detail, getting involved in contradictions, and disputing to wearisome length; it is pedantry and it leads to nothing.”

^{page 176 note 3} BB., xvii, 186.

^{page 177 note 1} See, however, Sievers, PBB., x, 234, and note exceptions. Cf. Chr. 591, 595, where the use is established by balance.

^{page 177 note 2} Metrisch-Sprachliches, p. 1.

^{page 177 note 3} With three of these (988, 1473, 1474), Trautmann himself could do nothing (BB., i, 25).

^{page 177 note 4} BB., xxiii.

^{page 177 note 5} Ib., 50.

^{page 178 note 1} Another disciple of the Bonn school, Hans Löhe, notes (BB., xxii, 63) that, in the 308 lines of Be Dōmes Dœge, “the poet offends 28 times against the old rule regarding anacrusis.” Bather let us say that the early use of such anacrusis finds strong support in this convincing evidence of its later extension.

^{page 178 note 2} BB., xxv, 75.

^{page 178 note 3} BB., i, 25.

^{page 178 note 4} See Von der Warth, pp. 13, 34; Trautmann, BB., xxiii, 100, 104, 114.

^{page 179 note 1} Consult Sievers, PBB., x, 236–241, 245–248, for examples of the expanded thesis in the Beowulf. Philipp Frucht, in his careful study of Cynewulf's metre, Metrisches und Sprachliches zu Cynewulfs Elene, Juliana und Christ, 1887, also notes many instances of this.

^{page 179 note 2} Cf. Von der Warth, pp. 7, 27.

^{page 179 note 3} Trautmann, BB., i, 84; Von der Warth, pp. 5–6.

^{page 180 note 1} BB., xxiii, 96.

^{page 180 note 2} l. c.

^{page 180 note 3} Ib., 117.

^{page 180 note 4} PBB., x, 454.

^{page 180 note 5} BB., xxxiii, 105.

^{page 181 note 1} PBB., xxix, 305 f.

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