Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Before 1473–4, when William Caxton printed the first book in English, all Middle English literature circulated in manuscripts: in copies written by hand. But few people now read this literature from the original manuscripts, for the manuscripts are rare and precious, preserved in just a few libraries, and far fewer people are trained to read the handwriting than are able to read the language. Instead, people now read Middle English literature in printed editions that ‘give out’ the text (the first meaning of Latin edere, the root of the word edition) or publish it in a form more accessible in cost and appearance than a manuscript would be. But such editing involves not only reproducing a text from a manuscript but changing it in some way. After all, the act of copying or reproducing implies change in who, where, how or why one needs a text; so when an edition reproduces a Middle English work in order to serve that changing situation it changes what was in the manuscript. We must be aware of these changes if we wish to know how Middle English literature appeared to its earliest readers and how our editions might influence our interpretation of this literature. However, many of the changes in editions respond to the changes found among manuscripts themselves; in the light of such changes, modern editions seem like just one more method of not only reproducing Middle English literature ... log in or subscribe to read full text