Editing Textual criticism (section)

==== Uninfluenced final authorial intention ====

McKerrow had articulated textual criticism's goal in terms of "our ideal of an author's fair copy of his work in its final state".<ref>McKerrow 1939, pp. 17–8, quoted in Bowers 1974, p. 82, n. 4</ref> Bowers asserted that editions founded on Greg's method would "represent the nearest approximation in every respect of the author's final intentions."{{sfn|Bowers|1964|p=227}} Bowers stated similarly that the editor's task is to "approximate as nearly as possible an inferential authorial fair copy."<ref>quoted in Tanselle 1976, p.  168</ref> Tanselle notes that, "Textual criticism&nbsp;...&nbsp;has generally been undertaken with a view to reconstructing, as accurately as possible, the text finally intended by the author".{{sfn|Tanselle|1995|p=16}}

Bowers and Tanselle argue for rejecting textual variants that an author inserted at the suggestion of others. Bowers said that his edition of [[Stephen Crane]]'s first novel, ''Maggie'', presented "the author's final and uninfluenced artistic intentions."<ref>quoted in Zeller 1975, p.  247</ref> In his writings, Tanselle refers to "unconstrained authorial intention" or "an author's uninfluenced intentions."{{sfn|Tanselle|1986|p=19}} This marks a departure from Greg, who had merely suggested that the editor inquire whether a later reading "is one that the author can reasonably be supposed to have substituted for the former",{{sfn|Greg|1950|p=32}} not implying any further inquiry as to ''why'' the author had made the change.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}

Tanselle discusses the example of [[Herman Melville]]'s ''[[Typee]]''. After the novel's initial publication, Melville's publisher asked him to soften the novel's criticisms of missionaries in the South Seas. Although Melville pronounced the changes an improvement, Tanselle rejected them in his edition, concluding that "there is no evidence, internal or external, to suggest that they are the kinds of changes Melville would have made without pressure from someone else."{{sfn|Tanselle|1976|p=194}}

Bowers confronted a similar problem in his edition of ''Maggie''. Crane originally printed the novel privately in 1893. To secure commercial publication in 1896, Crane agreed to remove profanity, but he also made stylistic revisions. Bowers's approach was to preserve the stylistic and literary changes of 1896, but to revert to the 1893 readings where he believed that Crane was fulfilling the publisher's intention rather than his own. There were, however, intermediate cases that could reasonably have been attributed to either intention, and some of Bowers's choices came under fire—both as to his judgment, and as to the wisdom of conflating readings from the two different versions of ''Maggie''.{{sfn|Davis|1977|pp=2–3}}

Hans Zeller argued that it is impossible to tease apart the changes Crane made for literary reasons and those made at the publisher's insistence:

{{blockquote|Firstly, in anticipation of the character of the expected censorship, Crane could be led to undertake alterations which also had literary value in the context of the new version. Secondly, because of the systematic character of the work, purely censorial alterations sparked off further alterations, determined at this stage by literary considerations. Again in consequence of the systemic character of the work, the contamination of the two historical versions in the edited text gives rise to a third version. Though the editor may indeed give a rational account of his decision at each point on the basis of the documents, nevertheless to aim to produce the ideal text which Crane would have produced in 1896 if the publisher had left him complete freedom is to my mind just as unhistorical as the question of how the first World War or the history of the United States would have developed if Germany had not caused the USA to enter the war in 1917 by unlimited submarine combat. The nonspecific form of censorship described above is one of the historical conditions under which Crane wrote the second version of ''Maggie'' and made it function. From the text which arose in this way it is not possible to subtract these forces and influences, in order to obtain a text of the author's own. Indeed I regard the "uninfluenced artistic intentions" of the author as something which exists only in terms of aesthetic abstraction. Between influences on the author and influences on the text are all manner of transitions.<ref>Zeller 1975, pp.  247–248</ref>  }}

Bowers and Tanselle recognize that texts often exist in more than one authoritative version. Tanselle argues that:

{{blockquote|[T]wo types of revision must be distinguished: that which aims at altering the purpose, direction, or character of a work, thus attempting to make a different sort of work out of it; and that which aims at intensifying, refining, or improving the work as then conceived (whether or not it succeeds in doing so), thus altering the work in degree but not in kind. If one may think of a work in terms of a spatial metaphor, the first might be labeled "vertical revision," because it moves the work to a different plane, and the second "horizontal revision," because it involves alterations within the same plane. Both produce local changes in active intention; but revisions of the first type appear to be in fulfillment of an altered programmatic intention or to reflect an altered active intention in the work as a whole, whereas those of the second do not.{{sfn|Tanselle|1976|p=193}}}}

He suggests that where a revision is "horizontal" (''i.e.'', aimed at improving the work as originally conceived), then the editor should adopt the author's later version. But where a revision is "vertical" (''i.e.'', fundamentally altering the work's intention as a whole), then the revision should be treated as a new work, and edited separately on its own terms.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}