Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age: Theory and Practice by Peter L. Shillingsburg (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Some glaring errors indicate that proofreading was skimped (in particu­ lar, p. 159 n. 2: for "Gg. 16.4" read "Gg. 4.27"). JANET M. COWEN King's College London University of London PETER 1. SHILLINGSBURG. Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age: Theory and Practice. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1986. Pp. x, 178. $22.00 cloth, $11.95 paper. This book is one of the most useful discussions of editorial theory and practice to have appeared in recent times. Less polemical than McGann's Critique (1983) but more perspicacious than Williams and Abbott's Intro­ duction (1985), Scholarly Editing clarifies and evaluates the terminology, methods, and objectives of a variety of editorial approaches in scholarly editions. There are three main sections: "Theory," "Practice," and "Practicalities." The first section examines common editorial principles, such as "authority," "intention," and "ideal text." Here and indeed throughout the book the discussion distinguishes itself from much editorial discussion both by its rhetorical restraint (compare Bowers and Parker) and by its recognition of the relativity of many editorial principles. Shillingsburg points out, for instance, that "the principles for selection among authoritative variants in order to create a single reading text reflect values that emanate from the editor's critical preferences and acknowledged or unacknowledged aes­ thetic principles" (p. 86). The principle of authority, consequently, is conditional, for authority "is not an inherent quality of works of art but is instead an attribute granted by the critic or editor and located variously or denied entirely depending on the critical orientation of the perceiver" (p. 17). Individual theories, however well established, are themselves necessarily predicated on conditional hermeneutics: "The reason [Bowers] does not acknowledge the extent of the critical foundation for his prefer­ ence [for what constitutes the "ideal text") is that he assumes everyone agrees with his conception of ideal texts" (pp. 83-84). But as Shillingsburg shows in a fascinating account of the accidentals of Thackery's texts, the significance of textual phenomena depends a great deal on the framework 286 REVIEWS within which they are analyzed. Rather than the "best" or "ideal" text, then, there are four types of "formal orientation"-the perspective "on forms which leads to the selection of one set of formal requirements over another" (p. 19)-and editors need to define which orientation they are using to define their best text; these orientations are the historical, the aesthetic, the authorial, and the sociological. The second section of the book explores the practical applications of the various editorial principles. Shillingsburg notes several examples of works which exist in multiple versions and considers how adherence to a given editorial theory can obscure this fact. While in a single edition editors cannot present four texts, each ofa different formal orientation, "they can and must do two things: (1) make clear which text they have provided, and (2) providea usableapparatus with enough information tosatisfy users who disagree legitimately with the editorial principles" (p. 109). They must not, that is, presume to identify, classify, and present the textual phe­ nomena once and for all. The final section of the book is based on the assumption that "regardless of where our theory of editing may take us, editing is a practical and expensive operation" (p. 120). Computer technology enables the sorts of editions Shillingsburg envisions, and he concludes with an account of how Computer Assistance to Scholarly Editing (CASE), a collation program that he and others developed, facilitated the Thackery Edition Project. There are four appendices illustrating CASE and its input specifications for TEXT typesetting software. As salutary as this book is, it is also somewhat disconcerting for medievalists, for it makes one realize how undeveloped editorial theory for medieval texts is in comparison to modern texts. Expensive and imposing editions are produced every year, and yet medievalists have not for the most part confronted in any explicit way the theoretical and practical issues Shillingsburg examines, much less attempted to determine the permuta­ tions of these issues which textually identify medieval works as medieval. Rather, editing continues under its own unreflective momentum and largely on the basis of derivatives of the principles which Shillingsburg has shown to be...