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The basic problem in producing an unambiguous and singular response to the question posed in the title of this chapter is that the phrase “textual scholarship” is itself not singular and, as we shall see, is full of ambiguities. Clearly, “textual scholarship” must in some way focus on a “text,” but that term can be particularly fraught and contentious. Similarly, “scholarship” may at first look fairly innocuous and straightforward: is it not just the serious, “scholarly” study of, and research into, a particular body of knowledge or information? Yes, it is certainly all of this; but, especially as it relates to “texts,” how is “scholarship” different from, or similar to, such possibly related activities as criticism, or interpretation, or editing, or commentary, or annotation?That was a question addressed by A. E. Housman, lyrical poet and fierce textual polemicist. Reacting against what he saw as the over-reliance on positivist system and “scientific” philology, Housman significantly used the label “textual criticism” to emphasize the human, the critical, and the personal in the approach to texts.Textual criticism is not a branch of mathematics, nor indeed an exact science at all. It deals with a matter not rigid and constant, like lines and numbers, but fluid and variable; namely the frailties and aberrations of the human mind, and of its insubordinate servants, the human fingers. ... log in or subscribe to read full text