Textual Angst

Abstract

The textual condition is a condition of angst—the anxiety of the indeterminacy of text. Years of investigation, editorial activity, foundation and government funding for textual criticism, bibliography and editing have left us farther than ever from certainty; for to the indeterminacy of textual meaning we have added orders of uncertainty about textuality itself. Though we find ourselves in the midst of a burgeoning textual theory industry, appalling ignorance continues to feed controversy over the relations between authoring acts, textual documents, and reader responses. Worse, we often assume that what we don't know about these issues does not matter. Literary theory has done little to advance our knowledge of the Textual Condition except to ask disturbing questions about it and to increase the level of interpretive anxiety. just when the New Bibliography seemed about to establish the Definitive Edition, along came the serpent, Theory, and asked "And is it really so?" Paradise, the Innocence of Text, has been lost; it remains to be seen whether it was a fortunate fall—it seems clear enough, however, that it was a necessary one.