Editing 'literature'

[davewitley]

Naama wrote:

> For me the core issue is respect for the original text. If a text 
is 
> not presented as the original text, then whatever changes have been 
> put there are *not* changes to the text itself. The reader is (or 
can 
> be) aware that the words he reads are different from the words the 
> author wrote. If s/he cares about such things, s/he can go look up 
> the original text. It's the same principle that guides the proper 
> rules of quotation. Would you consider it a trivial matter if I 
> presented something you wrote as a direct quotation when it's 
really 
> a paraphrase? It's a form of violation, isn't it?

I am very interested in this part of the argument, because of course, 
we quote each other all the time.  There is an (un-edited, I promise 
you) example above!

I sometimes get worried when debates get snippy on the main list 
precisely *because* posts are quoted verbatim and then made to mean 
more than, IMO, the author intended.  I have seen people get pushed 
into an extreme position because what seemed to me to be essentially 
an emotional reaction was being interpreted as a coherent position.

I would far rather people paraphrased my efforts with faithful 
intent, even if they did not mention they had done so, than that they 
take my literal words and use them against me.  (I should say I am 
happy to report that I don't recall that this has been done to me in 
any serious way.)

I think the implication is that you can never cross the same textual 
river twice: if the text has not changed, the context has.  It 
follows that the claims of the author cannot be absolute, because 
they cannot any more be realised.

For main list debates, I think it does mean trying to work out what a 
poster *meant* to say, and responding to that, rather than reacting 
to a form of words.

David, wondering if he has painted himself into a corner that says 
there is no such thing as a sacred text, and also wondering if post-
modernists deny the possibility of translation into other languages, 
because it involves discerning the intent of the author.