Les Mots de l’édition de textes by Frédéric Duval (review)

The purpose, criteria, and structure of this ‘lexique de l’édition de textes’ are neatly presented in the Introduction. The text takes an active role, rather than being merely descriptive—it is not only open to the future of French studies but also ready to embrace and discuss international scholarship. Every single choice, as well as the overall scheme, was made with this in mind, and this distinguishes the work from other recent publications such as the lexicographical study by Yorick Gomez Gane, Dizionario della terminologia filologica (Turin: Accademia University Press, 2013). For example, as the terminology of philological studies ‘est fort réduit en français’ (p. 6), Duval conveniently establishes French equivalents to terms used in Italian, English, and German (for example, It. ‘diffrazione’ > ‘diffraction’). Definitions are concise and preceded by etymology and equivalents in other languages when appropriate. Often they are followed by illuminating insights, both historical and critical, in which the author offers his personal views identifying theoretical and methodological cruces, and taking full responsibility in line with the didactic nature of the work (see ‘variance’). The select bibliography reflects the liveliness and scope of the discipline (although the book is based on a much larger corpus): it includes ‘classics’ from Gaston Paris’s critical edition of La Vie de saint Alexis (Paris: Franck, 1872), some masterpieces of classical philology (from Havet to Reeve, dwelling on Maas and Pasquali), works in romance philology (in particular Italian neo-Lachmannism from Barbi and Contini to Trovato and Leonardi), textual bibliography (from Greg and Bowers to Fahy and Harris), and so forth. Some parts of Contini’s oeuvre might have been cited from the collection Frammenti di filologia romanza (Florence: Sismel, 2007). The approach is necessarily synchronic and excludes, with few exceptions, references to specific texts and textual traditions. However, the dynamics of textual transmission are well represented, especially when an entry has both a meaning relating to editing technique and one relating to textual history (for example, ‘autorité’ is that of the reference copy adopted by the editor, but also that of a vulgate version — which seldom coincides in a single tradition). A distinction is made between ‘stemmatique’ (textual criticism) and ‘stemmatologie’ (textual history) — perhaps one of the rare cases in this volume of taxonomy being taken too far. In general, textual history is highlighted in the entries about witnesses, collation, reception (genealogy viewed from top to bottom), while textual criticism prevails in those on examinatio, constitutio textus, preparation of critical apparatuses (bottom-to-top). Entries from sister disciplines are adroitly limited to their direct contribution to philological work: metrics (see ‘anisosyllabisme’), stylistics (see ‘lectio difficilior’), narratology (see ‘analyse’), codicology, palaeography, etc. Digital humanities rightly figure as a subsidiary tool, with a selection of key words (see ‘balisage’), just as space is dedicated to the traditional but still compelling (and unresolved) parallel with restoration techniques (see ‘archéologie’). Operative concepts often sit next to words of greater breadth, which account for the philologist’s unremitting concerns: ‘verité’ (which would merit a more explicit reference to Avalle’s ‘doppia verità’), ‘authenticité’, and of course ‘texte’. The Devil and God meet in the detail.