McGann, Tanselle, and Editorial Intention

It is only in the seventh chapter of Critique that McGann finally states what he has been dancing around: “Furthermore, any actual edition produced by a critical scholar will bear within itself yet other, and more particular, idiosyncracies which are characteristic of the scholar who produced it, and the context in which he worked” (93). He brackets editorial intention for several pages before reviving the topic in his eighth chapter. Here, he writes that the scholarly editor “must come to a judgment about which of the legitimate texts to choose given the demands which are made upon the work” (104).

Tanselle, too, seems to bob and weave around the idea that the editor’s intention is as relevant as the author’s. Seemingly obsessed that there is some essential “work” hidden behind the merely instantial texts, Tanselle only begrudgingly admits that the textual editor (not one of the “many scholars [who] do not understand what scholarship is” (46), mind you) makes decisions that “obviously depend upon the editor’s historical interests and literary taste” (82).

Both authors seem blind to what Michael has pointed out: maybe “the author’s intention” was to make money. Maybe she didn’t really care about the specific wording of a given text in the way that the subsequent editor does. Maybe she saw any given text not as some instance of an essential work, but as work: as ethereal as the paper upon which it was written or the notes that McGann or Tanselle chalks on the blackboard in his lectures.

Perhaps consequently, both authors seem relatively blind to their own intentions. Whether the editor wants to produce a popular edition (for money) or a scholarly edition (for fame and less money), he is still approaching the author’s “work” with that intention. Moreover, he is approaching the edition with the intention (whether he knows it or not) of perpetuating the narrative of a single (and single-minded) author. In publishing, “Sue Grafton” or “Charles Dickens” is as much a marketing label as is “Madonna” or “Hatsune Miku.” As Hatsune’s most recent video makes clear, the author--and consequently, her intentions--is often more a narrative than a "fact." For the video, click here.