COMMERCIAL EDS & CRITICAL EDS

[Enrica Garzilli]

On Wed, 28 Jun 1995, Daud R. Ali wrote:

> 
>  
> Producing critical editions is indeed an important task, and many 
> historical and Indological scholarship has unquestionably rested on the 
> foundation of critically edited texts.  
> 
> But Mr. Lopez is correct in observing that the production of critical 
> editions is not a highly favored project in the american academy today.  
> This is only in part, I think, due to the 'religious studies" nature of 
> the job market.   If my eyes have not deceived me, once source of the 
> reticence in allied fields concerning the agendas of classical philology 
> is, I think,  a now widely established critique of the epistemological 
> foundations of philology, its notions of textuality and language.  
> 
> Daud Ali
> 
Mr. Ali is surely right.
But when I came here, I noticed that many scholars simply do not know how to 
write a critical edition, and do not have the farest idea that something 
like this can be done. It is easier (and less demonstrable) to meet with 
some god than to meet with a text in its features, that is, also its 
spatial and temporal parameters. Language has a history. 
After at least 5 years 
of Greek and  6 of Latin in our high schools, 3 years of Philosophy, and 
some 5 years of history, history of philosophy and philosophy of history 
(this is the usual training of the largest part of us in Italy) you 
are used to "place" a text and to cut it in a philological way 
(philology is not only concordances: this was only one of the first 
steps, much better done now by computer).
I remember that we had to read e.g. the Odyssey in Greek, and to compare
many of its passages in different translations, wrote by poets, scholars, 
writers, in different times and traditions.
The whole process involves several years of study. Here my daughter 
is compelled to study, in her Latin class (IV level) at her high school,
the history of Rome in English (and this class is considered very good, 
they also won several federal and national competitions)!
I read several American Indological books with 
long articulated sophisticated Introductions, and poor contents.  
I do not mean that in Italy we study "better" than here: I mean that the 
tradition of studying a text is different. 
And I think that Carlos Lopez is correct when he says that to study with 
a philological means (= to study a civilization basing on texts, or to make 
a global cultural operation on texts) 
is a suicide here: there is not such a tradition, therefore is not 
recognised, and it does not "pay" in terms of finding jobs, funds, etc.
Also here there are several exceptionally "complete" scholars: unfortunately 
they have already a position, therefore their position is no longer 
available!
In order to teach in a college or even in many depts./schools in prestigious 
universities (I am thinking of Harvard now) a  scholar does not need to 
make this historical/philosophical operation on texts, that involves 
"useless" years of study, teachers trained to use this means, a 
tradition. And he/she also would risk to have an empty class=not to be 
successfull: not to have his/her contract renewed.   

Dott. Enrica Garzilli
Harvard University