Textual Criticism
The criticism of a classical author with a view to establish a sound and defensible text is
of two kinds, each of which supplements and aids the other. The first is Diplomatic Criticism, which has to do with the age, authenticity, and value of the
existing manuscripts (
diplomata); and the second is Verbal or Grammatical Criticism, which alters the text in
order to make it conform to good sense or to the laws of the language, or to the critic's
conception of what the author meant to say. The former is based upon Palaeography; the second
in part upon the science of Philology and in part upon æsthetic principles. Wolff
and Boeckh classified the former as “Superior” criticism, and the latter
as “Inferior,” but this terminology is not generally accepted. The best
text-critic is he who can bring to bear upon his task a minute palaeographical knowledge and
at the same time linguistic training and a sound literary sense.
Textual criticism in Greece originated in the necessity that was felt of a unification and
collation of the various versions of the Homeric poems. Homer was to the Greeks much more than
a poet; he was long regarded as a great teacher of practical and also of ethical wisdom, and
he was read and studied in the schools in much the same spirit as a Christian would study the
Bible, or a Mohammedan the Korân. Owing to the fact that the Homeric poems were
largely transmitted orally and to the additional fact that the rhapsodists who recited them in
public frequently altered the text to suit the special occasion or their own notion of
an effective arrangement, there were many versions current even in very early times. It has
been inferred that Solon took some steps toward the establishing of an Homeric canon (Plato,
Hipparch. 228B;
Diog. Laert. i. 57), and
Pisistratus and his son Hipparchus are said to have intrusted a recension of the text to a
commission of four scholars who were to edit and unify the poems. (See Flach,
Pisistratos und seine litterarische Thätigkeit [Tübingen,
1885], and the article
Homerus.) This recension is
thought to have formed the basis of the famous “City Editions” (q. v.)
which in turn were worked over by the Alexandrian scholars. Other special texts were made by
Theagenes of Rhegium, Stesimbrotus of Thasos (c. 450 B.C.), and by Aristotle, who prepared a
version for the use of his pupil Alexander the Great, usually called
ἡ
ἐκ νάρθηκος from the case in which it was kept (
Plut.
Alex. 8; cf. Cope's introduction to Aristotle's
Rhetoric). Demetrius Phalereus also edited the
Iliad and the
Odyssey, while the Sophists spent considerable time in the critical study of
Homer. (See Friedel,
De Sophistarum Studiis Homericis [Halle, 1873]). At about
this time criticism was also applied to the texts of other great writers—to those of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—of whom an authentic text was promulgated by the
orator and statesman Lycurgus, about B.C. 350, which was the only one allowed to be used by
the actors. (See Korn,
De Aeschyli, Sophoclis, Euripidis Fabularum Exemplari Lycurgo
Auctore Confecto [Bonn, 1863].) Commentaries were also written on special points by
the Stoics and by the Cynics.
A more definite and scientific criticism was that undertaken by the philological section of
the School at Alexandria (see
Alexandrian
School), and in connection with the great Alexandrian Library (see
Bibliotheca), for which great quantities of
manuscripts were purchased by King Ptolemy at the advice of Demetrius Phalereus. All of the
early heads of the School worked at text-recension. Zenodotus of Ephesus (B.C. 325-260)
published a collection of Homeric glosses (see
Glossa), and about B.C. 274 put forth a
διόρθωσις or
recension of both the
Iliad and the
Odyssey, also called the
ἔκδοσις Ὁμήρου. In this, four kinds of corrections
appear: (
a) Elimination or the omission of lines known to be spurious;
(
b) Query or the indication of doubtful lines; (
c) Transposition or a change in the order of the lines; and (
d）
Emendation or the substitution of new readings for the old. See Düntzer,
De Zenodoti Studiis Homericis (Göttingen, 1848).
The existing texts were classified and characterized in the
Πίνακες of Callimachus, the first great bibliographical work ever written; and
Eratosthenes of Cyrené (c. 276-196 B.C.) wrote a critical treatise on the poets of
the Old Comedy. He was succeeded by Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. 257- 180 B.C.), perhaps the
greatest philologist of antiquity. His criticism was partly diplomatic and partly verbal; and
was guided always by the
sentiment critique. He did much for both
text-criticism and for language-study in general. To him is ascribed the invention of
diacritical marks and symbols (
σημεῖα κριτικά), all of great
palaeographic importance. Ten of these are known as the
δέκα
προσῳδίαι: (
a) the rough breathing (
πνεῦμα δασύ); (
b) the smooth breathing (
πνεῦμα ψιλόν); (
c) the grave accent (
βαρεῖα); (
d) the acute accent (
ὀξεῖα); (
e) the circumflex accent (
τόνος ὀξυβαρεῖα or
περι-
σπωμένη); (
f and
g) the long and short marks (
χρόνοι); (
h) the
διαστολή or comma
(virgule); (i) the hyphen (
ὑφέν); (
j) the apostrophe (
ἀπόστροφος). The
Greek marks of punctuation are also ascribed to Aristophanes. His critical work included an
edition of Homer (a second
διόρθωσις), and also editions of
Hesiod (the
Theogony), Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar, Euripides, Aristophanes, and
perhaps Simonides and Menander. The famous Alexandrian Canon was in part his work. See
Canon Alexandrinus.
His great pupil Aristarchus of Samothrace (c. 217-143 B.C.) did much for the study of formal
grammar (see
Grammatica), and also edited
Archilochus, Alcaeus, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and especially the
Homeric poems, of which he put forth two separate recensions, writing
συγγράμματα or special monographs, besides the
ἐκδόσεις (texts) and
ὑπομνήματα (commentaries).
Aristarchus approached his task in a skeptical spirit, and employed five processes: (
a)
διόρθωσις or arrangement of the text;
(
b)
ἀνάγνωσις or determination of
accents; (
c)
τέχνη, determination of
forms and questions of syntax; (
d)
ἐξήγησις or explanation of words, allusions, etc.; and (
e）
κρίσις, the determination of all questions respecting
authenticity or integrity of the text, and the final judgment of the author as a whole.
Aristarchus used a number of critical symbols in his work. Among them were the
ὀβελός or spit (—) to mark a spurious line; the
διπλῆ () to call attention to some special point; the dotted
διπλῆ () to denote a variant from the reading of
Zenodotus; and the
ἀστέρισκος (*) to denote a
“formulaic” line. Of the 15,600 lines of the
Iliad and
Odyssey, Aristarchus “athetized,” i. e. struck out as
spurious, 1160. See Gardthausen,
Palaeographie, pp. 288 foll.
(Leipzig,
1879); and on Aristarchus in general Lehrs,
De Aristarchi Studiis
Homericis (Königsberg, 1833; 2d ed. 1882); Ludwich,
Aristarch's homer. Textkritik (1884-85); and Jebb,
Homer (Glasgow, 1887). Cf. also Mahaffy's
Gk.
Lit. i. pp. 35-39
(New York, 1880).
The later Alexandrians did also much careful work in the recension of texts, and so did the
rival School of Pergamus, headed by Crates of Mallos, the “Anomalist” (see
Crates;
Philologia), who flourished in B.C. 168. (See Wagener,
De Aula Attalica
[1836].) Didymus Chalcenteros (B.C. 65- A.D. 10) is the last of the important Greek text
critics. See
Didymus.
From the Greeks the Romans received the principles of textual criticism, and early began to
apply these principles to the study of Latin works. Lucius Aelius Stilo investigated the text
of the
Carmina Saliaria; M. Antonius Griphus wrote commentaries on the
Annales of Ennius. Cicero is said to have prepared an edition of Lucretius.
(See
Lucretius.) To Varro we owe the
establishment of a Plautine Canon. (See
Plautus;
Varro.) The greatest of the Roman text-critics was M.
Valerius Probus Berytus (c. 80 A.D.), who edited, with critical signs, Vergil, Horace,
Lucretius, and Terence, and wrote a treatise on the
σημεῖα
κριτικά. (See Suet.
Reliq. p. 138, Reifferscheid; and the
introduction to Conington's Vergil, i. pp. lxv. foll.) Glossography also flourished greatly
among the Romans. See
Glossa; Scholia ;
Subscriptio.
In the first period of the Renaissance in Italy the study of texts revived during the
corruption of existing manuscripts. (See
Renaissance.) Among these early critics are Laurentius
Valla (q.v.) and
Politianus
(q.v.). The critical acumen of scholars was much sharpened by the immense number of forged
texts that began to appear. A single forger, Annius of Viterbo, alone put forth seventeen
volumes of spurious works ascribed by him to the classical writers. (See Wachler in Ersch and
Gruber's
Encyclopädie.) Gradually a scientific basis for textual
criticism was established, the great names in this process being those belonging to the
so-called French or Polyhistorical School, the Scaligers, Lambinus, Salmasius, and Casaubon;
and to the Anglo-Dutch or Critical School, Gronovius, Burmann, Hemsterhuys, and especially
Richard Bentley. In more recent times, the important names are those of I. Bekker, Boeckh,
Lachmann, Ritschl, Madvig, Cobet, Porson, Munro, Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, and Vahlen. See
especially the articles
Bentley;
Lachmann;
Scaliger.
Text-critics are generally to be classified according to the relative importance which they
give to the subjective element in their criticism. Bentley, who is the father of the
subjective method, in his later work largely disregarded the evidence of manuscripts in his
determination of the proper lections, depending largely upon his own instinctive feeling as to
what an author must have said. He has expressed this principle in a formal phrase
—
Nobis et ratio et res ipsa centum codicibus potiores
sunt—and in following this out he did much that was rash and indefensible as
well as much that is brilliant and convincing. The
reductio ad absurdum
of this subjective method will be found in Bentley's edition of Milton's
Paradise
Lost, in which he rewrote whole passages, because of reasons based on his own
conception of what Milton must in reality have said. See Jebb's
Bentley
(New York, 1882).
The school that represents the antithesis of the Bentleian principle is that of which the
Jesuit scholars of France stand as a type. These held to what they called
la
tradition classique, and studied to avoid any radical changes in a text whatever, going
so far as to force an explanation of passages that evidently violate the laws of the ancient
languages, history, and good sense. The Bentleians rewrite everything; the other school
explains everything; and each set must be regarded as often equally unreasonable.
For an explanation of the methods and principles of modern text-criticism, the reader is
referred to Cobet,
De Arte Interpretandi (Leyden, 1847); Madvig,
Adversaria Critica, especially vol. i.
(1870); Tournier,
Exercices Critiques de l'École des Hautes Études
(Paris, 1875); and the Prolegomena to Lachmann's Lucretius
(1850, last ed.
1866); Munro's Lucretius
(last ed. 1886); Ellis's Catullus
(last ed.
1889); and for a simple and interesting statement of more obvious matters, Gow's
Companion to School Classics, pp. 47-66
(London and New York,
1888).
