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Textual Criticism and the Transmission of Latin Texts |
A bibliography composed with the needs of graduate students in mind |
James Zetzel |
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zetzel/ |
A bibliography composed with the needs of graduate students in mind
James Zetzel, Columbia University
© 2022. This work is openly licensed via CC BY 3.0.
Revised December 2023 by Sander Goldberg, UCLA ([email protected]), whose additions are marked by an asterisk (*).
This guide concerns both a very precise subject (textual criticism) and a very broad one (transmission of texts). The broader question can lead into the history of scripts and of manuscript collections and into European intellectual history from antiquity to the present, depending on how you define the subject. What follows falls into three sections, moving from the particular to the general, and becoming less thorough and less expert at every step. The basic rule, however, is simple: if you want to know about ancient (particularly) Latin texts and how to treat them, find some scholars whose approach you admire and read their work. The lists below include some of the scholars I admire and have learned from, but it is both opinionated and by no means exhaustive; you are likely to think of others. Suggestions for additions to this list are always welcome.
Before you delve into the detailed bibliographies below, there is one book you should read first:
L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars (ed. 3, 1991).
It is a lucid, readable, and accurate account of how ancient texts, both Greek and Roman, got from antiquity to Now, followed by a clear and brief explanation of textual criticism. For many purposes, you need go no further. But if you want or need more, read on.
I. I am using a critical edition and need to learn what the hen-tracks at the foot of the page mean – and why it matters.
A critical apparatus is meant to explain to the reader what words in the text are preserved in what manuscripts (generally identified with capital Roman letters in modern editions) or groups of manuscripts (generally identified with lower-case Greek letters or occasionally lower-case Roman letters), and what words in the text are modern (broadly defined) corrections. The key to the codes used in the apparatus was set out by an international convention printed as:
Emploi des signes critiques, dispostion de l'apparat dans les éditions savantes de textes grecs et latins, conseils et recommandations. Union Académique Internationale. Paris, 1932
Like many international treaties, however, it is frequently ignored and the conventions for editing texts preserved in different media (manuscript, papyrus, inscription) remain quite different from one another. Not to mention the fact that these conventions are fairly recent, and any edition earlier than the 20th century is likely to convey information using a different code.
Fuller than the chapter of Scribes and Scholars, the most straightforward explanation of how to write and read an apparatus, and a good account of how textual criticism works, is:
M. L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique (1973)
West’s is a relatively user-friendly version of the classic exposition of the editorial theory generally known as the Method of Lachmann (on which see further below). The theory itself is set out in terse, elegant, and abstract form in a very brief masterpiece:
P. Maas, Textual Criticism, transl. B. Flower (1958)
Also valuable for judiciousness and lucidity is:
*R. J. Tarrant, Texts, Editors, and Readers: Methods and Problems in Latin Textual Criticism. Roman Literature and its Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
———, “Classical Latin Literature” in D. Greetham, ed., Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research (1995): 95-148
You should be aware, however, that the classic theory is not the only theory of textual criticism. For medieval or non-literary texts, the most important theoretical work is:
H. Kantorowicz, Einführung in die Textkritik. Systematische Darstellung der textkritischen Grundsätze fur Philologen und Juristen (1921)
Postmodern textual theory, which concentrates on reception rather than reconstruction, is also valuable, even for classicists. Among the most useful works are:
G. Bornstein and R. Williams, eds., Palimpsest: editorial theory in the humanities (1993)
D. Greetham, Theories of the Text (1999)
J. McGann, A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism (ed. 2, 1992)
———, The Textual Condition (1991)
Other major theoretical works you may encounter include:
J. Bédier, La tradition manuscrite du Lai de l'ombre: réflexions sur l'art d'éditer les anciens textes (1970)
L. Havet, Manuel de critique verbale appliquée aux textes latins (1911)
H. Quentin, Essais de critique textuelle (ecdotique) (1926)
Textbooks of practical textual criticism are not reliable, but are occasionally useful:
J. Willis, Latin Textual Criticism (1972). Aside from the fundamental error of equating textual criticism with emendation, the book is entertaining and gives practical exercises in emending texts without assuming (or supplying) any knowledge of their history or manuscripts.
W. M. Lindsay, An Introduction to Latin Textual Emendation, Based on the Text of Plautus (1896). Lindsay’s work (and there is a great deal of it) is rarely exciting, almost always (with the exception of his book on Plautine meter) useful and clear. This book is exactly what it says it is – discussing varieties of correction, largely involving palaeographical errors.
The one truly great work of this kind for Latin is old, but still well worth reading:
J. N. Madvig, Adversaria Critica ad scriptores Graecos et Latinos (1871-1884). Madvig is a truly great scholar, often undervalued because he did not go in for the pyrotechnics and polemics of a Bentley or Housman. He is always worth reading.
*How does our growing dependence on digital texts affect the editor’s work? Students of Greco-Roman antiquity were among the first humanists to recognize and embrace the many advantages of digital resources, but our main repositories of texts, viz. The Perseus Digital Library, the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, The Packard Humanities Institute, and The Latin Library provide what are in essence digitized versions of pre-existing printed texts. What would a born-digital text look like? How would it make available the full range of information provided by a standard critical edition? Does it change in any way the very concept of an authoritative edition? The first major initiative to tackle the many challenges facing textual criticism in the digital age is The Digital Latin Library, a joint project of the Society for Classical Studies, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Renaissance Society of America. Its web site contains a wealth of information on this and related digital initiatives. Developing the digital equivalent of an apparatus criticus has proven especially challenging. On this important topic, see,
C. Damon, “Beyond variants: Some digital desiderata for the critical apparatus of ancient Greek and Latin texts,” in Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, edited by M. Driscoll and E. Pierazzo. Cambridge: OpenBook Publishers, 2016. 201-18.
Textual criticism is generally divided into two (circularly overlapping) parts: recension is the assembly, organization, and assessment of the manuscript (and sometimes other) evidence for the text in question, while emendation is the process of judging whether that transmitted text is what the author wrote and attempting to correct the transmitted text on the basis of style, history, grammar, or other criteria. Textual critics who emphasize recension and are wary of emendation are often described as conservative; textual critics who emphasize emendation and pay little attention to the manuscripts and transmission may be described as radical. These descriptions do not in fact map onto the political sensibilities of the critics of various types, and in any case responsible editors are close to the middle of the spectrum, with greater or lesser emphasis on recension or emendation, but making full use of both. Different texts require different approaches: one can not edit Catullus or Propertius conservatively, because the manuscript evidence is so poor; one can not be a radical emender in editing Virgil or Horace, because the manuscript evidence is so good. But even the manuscripts of Propertius and sometimes right, and those of Virgil sometimes wrong. But editors vary widely in their beliefs about the possibility of true conjecture and about the fallibility of the human intellect. A truly radical critic, such as Bentley or Housman or Shackleton Bailey, is supremely confident in his own genius, and believes that he knows Latin better than the scribes (not unreasonable) and better than the author he is editing (less reasonable). A conservative critic can often be too cautious in correcting passages that are obviously corrupt.
The first place to turn to find out the history of most works of Latin literature is:
L. D. Reynolds ed., Texts and Transmission (1983). A collection of articles of remarkably high quality about the transmission of every major Latin author (and some fairly minor ones).
Other guides are much less useful and much less complete, e.g.
F. W. Hall, Companion to Classical Texts (1913; now very out of date)
H. Hunger et al., Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literatur, I: Antikes und mittelalterliches Buch- und Schriftwesen, Ueberlieferungsgeschichte der antiken Literatur (1961)
The one great, classic work on the transmission of ancient literature is:
G. Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (ed. 2, 1962)
Some other recent works dealing with more than a single author include:
G. Cavallo et al., Lo Spazioletterario di Roma antica (1989-)
O. Pecere, ed., Itinerari dei testi antichi (1991)
O. Pecere and M. Reeve, eds., Formative stages of classical traditions: Latin texts from antiquity to the Renaissance (1995)
C. Questa and R. Raffaelli, eds., Il Libro e il testo (1984)
When it comes to the history of particular texts, every scholar has his or her own favorites, and most important works are signalled in Texts and Transmission. The one work on a non-classical text that is necessary reading is:
L. Traube, Textgeschichte der Regula Benedicti (ed. 2, 1910). If you are seriously interested in textual criticism or the history of texts, start here. In fact, read anything Traube ever wrote. Various essays on the transmission of texts are included in his Kleine Schriften (1920). Some of his conclusions have been modified by later research, but no one has ever had a better understanding of the process of transmission. A note on intellectual genealogy: Traube taught, among others, the American scholars E. K. Rand, E. A. Lowe, and C. H. Beeson; most American palaeographers and textual critics of Latin in the twentieth century were taught by them.
If you really want to learn textual criticism, read the work of good editors and historians of texts. For Latin literature, here are some I admire, listed by scholar, not by ancient text. There are other outstanding editions; these offer prefaces or comments that illuminate editorial method and textual history. The secondary bibliography offered on a few scholars is very limited, but offers a start.
R. Bentley, ed., Q. Horatius Flaccus ex recensione & cum notis atque emendationibus Richardi Bentleii (1711)
———, ed., P. Terenti Afri Comoediae (1727)
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*On Bentley, see now K. Haugen, Richard Bentley: Poetry and Enlightenment (Boston 2011)
Giuseppe Billanovich, “Petrarch and the Textual Tradition of Livy” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14 (1951) 137-208
———, “Dall’antica Ravenna alle bibliotheche umanistiche” Aevum 30 (1956) 319-53
W. Clausen, ed., A. Persi Flacci Saturarum liber (1956)
E. Courtney, “The Transmission of Juvenal’s Text,” BICS 14 (1967) 38-50
*C. Damon, “Editing Caesar,” in The Landmark Julius Caesar: Web Essays, edited by K.A. Raaflaub. 271-74.
G. P. Goold, “Servius and the Helen Episode,” HSCP 74 (1970) 101-68
H. C. Gotoff, The Transmission of the Text of Lucan in the Ninth Century (1971)
*N. Horsfall, “Fraud as Scholarship: The Helen Episode and the Appendix Vergiliana,” ICS 31/32 (2006-2007) 1-27
A. E. Housman, ed., M. Manilii Astronomicon liber primus[-quintus] (5 vols., 1903-1930)
———, ed., M. Annaei Lucani Belli civilis libri decem (1926)
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On Housman, see now D. Butterfield and C. Stray, eds., A. E. Housman: Classical Scholar (2009)
O. Jahn, ed., Auli Persii Flacci Satirarum Liber (1843)
———, “Ueber die Subscriptionen in den Hanschriften römischer Classiker,” Berichte d. sächs. Ges. Der Wiss. zu Leipzig, Phil.-Hist. Klasse 3 (1851) 327-72
K. Lachmann, ed., T. Lucreti Cari De rerum natura libri sex (1851)
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On Lachmann, see S. Timpanaro, The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method, tr. G. Most (2005)
F. Leo, ed. L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae (1878-79)
J. N. Madvig, ed., M. Tulli Ciceronis De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum Libri Vs (1876)
K. Mueller, ed., Quintus Curtius Rufus: Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis libri qui supersunt (1954)
L. D. Reynolds, The Medieval Tradition of Seneca’s Letters (1965)
O. Ribbeck, ed., P. Vergili Maronis opera. Vol 5: Prolegomena critica (1868)
F. Ritschl, ed., T. Macci Plauti Comoediae (1848-54)
J. J. Scaliger, Catulli, Tibulli, Propertii nova editio (1577)
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On Scaliger as a critic, see A. T. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship Vol. 1 (1983)
D. R. Shackleton Bailey, ed., Cicero’s Letters to Atticus (7 vols., 1965-1970)
R. J. Tarrant, ed., P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses (2004)
P. Wessner, ed., Scholia in Iuuenalem Vetustiora (1931)
This section inevitably repeats some previous entries and there is much on the subject in studies (above, #3) of particular texts.
E. J. Kenney, The Classical Text (1974)
G. Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (ed. 2, 1962)
L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars (ed. 3, 1991)
S. Timpanaro, The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method, tr. G. Most (2005)
*J. E. G. Zetzel, Critics, Compilers, and Commentators. An Introduction to Roman Philology, 200BCE – 800CE (Oxford 2018)
All manuscript collections have catalogues, but not all catalogues are either a) printed or b) informative. If you want to start serious study of manuscripts of a given author (or of manuscript catalogues that mention a given author), start from broader collections and work your way down to specific libraries.
G. Becker, Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui (1885)
B. Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts (mit Ausnahme der wisigotischen) (1998-)
P. O. Kristeller, Iter Italicum; a finding list of uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other libraries. (1963-97)
———, Latin manuscript books before 1600; a list of the printed catalogues and unpublished inventories of extant collections. (1965)
P. O. Kristeller et al., Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum (1960-)
E. A. Lowe, ed., Codices latini antiquiores: a palaeographical guide to Latin manuscripts prior to the ninth century (1934-1972)
B. Munk Olsen, L'étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles (1982-2009)
The invention of the historical study of script belongs to the Maurist priest Jean Mabillon:
J. Mabillon, De re diplomatica Libri VI (1681)
It is a grand book, which includes not only the development of Latin scripts but diplomatics and the historical authentication of documents. The term ‘palaeography’ was invented a few years later by Mabillon’s friend and fellow Maurist Bernard de Montfaucon in his Palaeographia Graeca. Mabillon’s account of the history of scripts is no longer valid; Montfaucon’s book is still a good introduction to Greek palaeography.
G. Battelli, Lezioni di paleografia (1949)
B. Bischoff, Latin palaeography: antiquity and the Middle Ages, transl. Dáibhí ó Cróinin and David Ganz (1990). There is a more recent edition in German.
J. Kirchner, Scriptura Latina libraria, a saeculo primo usque ad finem medii aevi, LXXVII imaginibus illustrata (ed. 2, 1970)
E. A. Lowe, The Beneventan Script (ed. 2, 1980)
J. Mallon, Paléographie romaine (1952). Mallon is concerned only with early Roman writing, not the full history of Latin hands.
E. M. Thompson, An introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography (1912)
B. L. Ullman, The origin and development of humanistic script (1960)
There are many facsimiles of individual important manuscripts. These are collections that allow you to see multiple manuscripts of the same texts.
E. Chatelain, Paléographie des classiques latins (1884-1900)
R. Merkelbach and H. van Thiel, Lateinisches Leseheft: zur Einführung in Paläographie und Textkritik (1969)
*Major libraries are increasingly putting complete digital versions of their manuscript holdings online. Notable examples include The Vatican Library and The Bodleian Library.
A. Cappelli, Lexicon abbreviaturarum: dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane usate nelle carte e codici specialmente del Medio-Evo, riprodotte con oltre 14000 segni incisi, con l'aggiunta di uno studio sulla brachigrafia medioevale, un prontuario di sigle epigrafiche, l'antica numerazione romana ed arabica ed i segni indicanti monete, pesi, misure, etc. (ed. 6, 1990; many editions with various titles in several languages)
W. M. Lindsay, Notae latinae: an account of abbreviation in Latin Mss. of the early minuscule period (c. 700-850) (1915)
L. Traube, Nomina sacra, versuch einer geschichte der christlichen kürzung (1907)
L. Traube, “Geschichte der Palaeographie” in Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen, vol. 1 (1909)
T. J. Brown, “Latin Palaeography since Traube” in A Palaeographer’s View (1993)
*Immediate answers can often be found online by consulting The Database of Classical Scholars. Entries, which are limited to North American and European scholars no longer living, vary from basic facts of biography and bibliography to extended appreciations. They are generally fuller and more reliable than entries in Wikipedia, The site also provides access to the APA Oral History Project, which has posted video interviews with prominent contemporary scholars.
Print dictionaries are of very variable value. For early scholars, start with the very brief but invaluable Pökel. National biographical dictionaries, where available, are generally more informed about intellectual background and context than biographical dictionaries of classicists alone.
W. Briggs, ed., Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists (1994)
W. Briggs and W. Calder, eds., Classical Scholarship: A Biographical Encyclopedia (1990)
W. Calder and D. J. Kramer, An Introductory Bibliography to the History of Classical Scholarship Chiefly in the XIXth and XXth Centuries (1992)
———, A Supplementary Bibliography to the History of Classical Scholarship Chiefly in the XIXth and XXth Centuries (2000)
A. Eckstein, Nomenclator Philologorum (1871)
J.-F. Maillard, J. Kecskeméti et M. Portalier, eds., L’Europe des humanistes (XIVe-XVIIe siècles) (1995)
C. Nativel, ed., Centuriæ latinæ: cent une figures humanistes de la Renaissance aux Lumières offertes à Jacques Chomarat (1997)
W. Pökel, Philologische Schriftstellerlexikon (1882)
R. B. Todd (ed.), The Dictionary of British Classicists (2005)
W. Unte, Heroen und Epigonen: Gelehrtenbiographien der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (2003)
This is a small and idiosyncratic list of works I find useful.
A. Gudeman, Grundriss der Geschichte der klassischen Philologie (ed. 2, 1909)
J. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (3 vols., 1903-1908)
U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, History of Classical Scholarship, transl. A. Harris (1982)
R. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (1988)
E. Lesne, Histoire de la propriété ecclésiastique en France, vol. 4: Les livres des églises et des monastères; "scriptoria" et bibliothèques du VIIe siècle à la fin du XIe (1910-)
H. I. Marrou, Patristique et humanisme (1976)
P. Riché, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West (1976)
W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen im mittelalter (ed. 3, 1897)
*J. E. G. Zetzel, Critics, Compilers, and Commentators. An Introduction to Roman Philology, 200BCE – 800CE (Oxford 2018)
———, Latin Textual Criticism in Antiquity (1981)
———, Marginal Scholarship and Textual Deviance (1995)
A. Grafton, Forgers and Critics (1990)
———, Defenders of the Text (1991) [and other books and articles by the same author]
R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850 (1976)
S. Rizzo, Il lessico filologico degli umanisti (1973). Organized as a dictionary, but absolutely invaluable for understanding what humanist critics did.
R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne’secoli XIV e XV (1914; ed. 2 with additions by E. Garin, 1967)
C. Brink, English classical scholarship: historical reflections on Bentley, Porson and Housman (1985)
C. Bursian, Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland (1883)
L. Mueller, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie in den Niederlanden (1869)
M. Platnauer, ed., Fifty Years (and Twelve) of Classical Scholarship (1968)
C. Stray, Classics transformed: schools, universities, and society in England, 1830-1960 (1998) [and other books and articles by the same author]
S. Timpanaro, La Filologia di Giacomo Leopardi (ed. 3, 1997)
P. Treves, Lo Studio dell’antichità classica nell’Ottocento (1962)