ENGD98Y3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Textual Criticism, Kerning, Tragic Hero
Document Summary
Textual criticism has at its ideal the establishment of an authentic text, or the text the author intended . This authentic text is not easy to achieve, because the literary text can be corrupted in many ways. May contain omissions and errors in spelling and mechanics. Sometimes authors themselves cannot decide what the final form of their work is to be - they publish several different versions or delegate broad editorial powers along the line. Thorpe: the transmission of the text, without the invention of author or editor, is one of progressive denigration (pp. The final product of a text is the result of textual variants, interpretation, and emendation or conjecture. Textual variants: instances in which two or more versions of a text differ. It is pointless to study inaccurate versions of anything, except with a view to ascertain the true/authorial version of a text.
