TEXTUAL CRITICISM (OF., Fr. tertue/, from Lat. textus, text, composition, fabric. from texere, to weave). The criticism of existing texts of literary works with a view to the de tection of errors which have crept in, and the restoration of the reading intended by the au thor. Such criticism may be necessary in the case of any literary production which is no longer under the control of its author, hut it finds its most difficult problems in the Old and New Testaments, the Greek and Latin authors whose works are preserved to us. in the older monuments of the national literatures, and in the texts of some moderns, e.g. Chaucer and Shakespeare.
The criticism of the texts of Greek and Latin authors, to take them as examples, is based first of all on a careful study and comparison of all existing manuscripts, then on quotations and unconscious reminiscences of the writer in ques tion, in other authors. and filially on such helps as may be obtained from ancient commentaries, ,Scholia (see SCHOLIASTS), or from early trans lations, such as the Latin and Arabic render ings of certain works of Aristotle. of our classical manuscripts belong to the period from the ninth to the fifteenth century; a few are earlier, one or two possibly as old as the fourth century. and some are later, but ordinarily the manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen turies are of little or no value. No existing manuscript is free from error. The scribes often did their work mechanically and ignorantly, so that blunders were easily made; these were then perpetuated and spread byeach successive copyist. Such errors may he corrected by comparison with a manuscript which does not contain the iden tical blunders; but in case all existing manu scripts are descended from the same incorrect original, the same errors will probably appear in all. In such case, if the subsidiary aids named above fail, the only resort is to conjectural emendation. Or it may happen that a number of manuscripts have different readings in the same passage, all intelligible. The problem then is to determine which of the several readings is the one intended by the author.
Errors in manuscripts may he divided into: (1) Errors of Omission. (2) Errors of Insertion. (3) Errors of Substitution, (4) Errors of Transposition. (5) Errors of Emendation, (6) Errors due to the Confusion of Letters or Con tractions.
( 1) Errors of Omission. The simplest form of this class of errors is that known as hap lography, when of two identical letters, syllables, or words only one is written ; e.g. Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 54, xi viverent for siri virercnt ; Vergih Georgics, 4, 311, magis acre carpunt for magis magis acre carpunt. The omission of a syllable. word, or passage may also he due to the inex cusable carelessness of the scribe, a failure to understand, a defect in the archetype, etc. Alost such omissions come under the head of what is technically known as lipagraphy. Examples are furnished by Vergil, .Enrid, 4. 491, descere for desecndere; 6, 708, indent for insidunt. The omission of clauses or sentences in prose, or of whole lines in poetry, is frequently occasioned by the similar endings of clauses or verses (hoinccotelcuton), or by similar words in the same position within the lines, so that the eye of the scribe jumped from one to the other. In Plautus's Ilacchides, the oldest manuscript lacks two entire verses, owing to the fact that v. 507 has atque and v. 509 usque in the same position. The texts of Lucretius and Vergil also furnish a number of examples of this kind of error.
(2) Errors of Insertion. One of the most common forms of this class of errors is that known as dittography, whereby a letter, syllable, or word is written twice. A case of double dit tography is furnished by the Palimpsest of Cicero, De Republica, 2. 57, seertrtrseevivs for secutus. Often an explanatory word, gloss, or passage, either interlinear or marginal, is in serted in the body of the text. Thus in Plau tus's Truculentas, v. 79, is an unmetrical line, Phroncsium, nam phrtmesis eet Sapientia, which apparently was originally a marginal gloss in explanation of the proper name Phronesium in v. 77. Or any marginal note may be incor porated by the scribe, such as Caput. chapter, rota, take notice, quest, there is lacking, etc. In some cases insertions have been made with fraudulent intent. There is an ancient tradi tion that the mention of Athens in the Iliad, 2, 553MT., was interpolated to give the dignity of antiquity to the capital of Attica. Syntactical corrections, both intentional and unintentional.