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Contamination in Manuscripts of the A-Text of Piers the Plowman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

D. C. Fowler
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Extract

Theoretically it is true that the application of the genealogical method to a sizable number of manuscripts descended from a single archetype would allow the almost perfect reconstruction of that archetype. Families, groups, and subgroups could be distinguished without hesitation, and readings could be determined with very little recourse to editorial ingenuity. Unfortunately such conditions are not to be found in actual practice. When the text critic has made a systematic record of all variants to be found in the MSS that he has collated, he must determine which of the great quantity of variational groups are genetic—that is, which groups actually reflect in their common readings the genealogy of their transmission. This operation requires the elimination of variational groups formed by the mere possession of the right reading, and random groupings formed by the accidental coincidence of readings.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , June 1951 , pp. 495 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951

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References

Note 1 in page 495 See Thomas A. Knott, “An Essay toward the Critical Text of the A-Version of ‘Piers the Plowman,‘ ” MP, xii (1915), 402–403.

Note 2 in page 496 See John M. Manly and Edith Rickert, The Text of The Canterbury Tales (Chicago, 1940), II, 24 f.

Note 3 in page 496 Line numbers cited for As will follow the numbering of my unpublished dissertation, “A Critical Text of Piers Plowman A2” (Univ. of Chicago, 1949). Subsequent references to lines in Ai will be in agreement with the numbering of the unpublished critical text prepared by Thomas A. Knott, now in my possession. The corresponding line numbers are given in parentheses, when they differ, from the edition of the A-text by Walter W. Skeat, EETS O.S. No. 28 (London, 1867).

Note 4 in page 498 Knott, op. cit. R. W. Chambers and J. H. G. Grattan, “The Text of 'Piers Plowman,'” MLR, iv (1909), 357–389; “The Text of 'Piers Plowman': Critical Methods,” MLR, xi (1916), 257–275; “The Text of 'Piers Plowman,' ” MLR, xxvi (1931), 1–51. J. H. G. Grattan, “The Text of 'Piers Plowman': A Newly Discovered Manuscript and Its Affinities,” MLR, XLII (1947), 1–8; “The Text of ‘Piers Plowman’: Critical Lucubrations with special Reference to the Independent Substitution of Similars,” SP, xliv (1947), 593–604.

Note 5 in page 499 Ch and M are MSS discovered after the original work of these scholars was published; T2 ends with 7.209 (216); W joins this group in the Vita portion of the text; the shifting of URT2 in the prologue, passus one, and passus seven is not taken into account—see MP, xii (1915), 402–403.

Note 6 in page 499 MLR, iv (1909), 379.

Note 7 in page 499 MP, xii (1915), 411–412.

Note 8 in page 499 MLR, xi (1916), 260.

Note 9 in page 499 Ibid., 261. Italics are the authors'.

Note 10 in page 499 MLR, XLII (1947), 4. It is interesting to note that of the 32 readings used by Grattan to show the connection between T and Ch, over half are in reality evidence for the subgroup TH2 ChD.

Note 11 in page 503 Cf. Grattan's substitution-type no. 5, SP, xliv (1947), 596 f.

Note 12 in page 503 P, xii (1915), 393 f.