Variant (literature)

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A variant is a text that on the one hand is similar to another text and on the other hand is sufficiently different from it that the texts cannot be assessed as identical according to certain criteria. In edition studies , a branch of literary studies , there are theoretical and methodological concepts for the phenomenon variant. Variants can be contextual and they influence the understanding of a work of art.

For the English-language terminology, Christian Moraru proposed a distinction between variant and version . A variant is the result of the question about the HOW, while a version is the answer to the question WHAT? This also includes a derived status or a dependency on a previous narration "which it both repeats and modifies."

History of science

In his polemical essay Éloge de la variante (1989), Bernard Cerquiglini argues that the formation of variants is a fundamental characteristic of handwritten literature. Cerquiglini's main thesis is that variants and variance are central aspects of the medieval text and that for this reason editors of modern editions do not deal adequately with the texts if they see variance as something that needs to be eliminated. In the course of the 'New Philology', which was inspired by Cerquiglini's essay, variant versions were considered more differently and the variant gained increasing interest for the interpretation of the work .

Research literature

  • Variants - Variants - Variantes . Edited by Christa Jansohn and Bodo Plachta. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-484-29522-8
  • Christian Moraru : Rewriting. Postmodern Narrative and Cultural Critique in the Age of Cloning. Albany, State University of New York, 2001
  • Karl Kroeber : Retelling / Rereading. The Fate of Storytelling on Modern Times. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992
  • Gérard Genette : Palimpsests. Second level literature . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-518-11683-5 (first published in French with the title Palimpsestes. La littérature au second degré , 1982),
  • Seymour Chatman : "Reply to Barbara Herrnstein Smith", Critical Inquiry , 7 (1981), 802-809.
  • Barbara Herrnstein Smith : "Narrative Versions", Critical Inquiry , 7 (1980), 213-216.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Christa Jansohn and Bodo Plachta: "Foreword", in: Variants - Variants - Variantes . Edited by Christa Jansohn and Bodo Plachta. Niemeyer, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-484-29522-8 , pp. 1-6
  2. ^ Christian Moraru: "Narrative versions", in: Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory , Routledge, London 2005, repr. 2010, ISBN 978-0-415-28259-8 (hbk), ISBN 978-0-415-77512-0 (pbk), pp. 385-386.
  3. ↑ The English edition of Bernard Cerquiglini's Éloge de la variant appeared ten years later in a translation by Betsy Wing with the title In praise of the variant: A critical history of philology by the Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1999, ISBN 0-8018- 6126-8
  4. ↑ MJ Driscoll, " The words on the page: Thoughts on philology, old and new " (open access), in: Creating the medieval saga: Versions, variability, and editorial interpretations of Old Norse saga literature, edited by Judy Quinn & Emily Lethbridge. Syddansk Universitetsforlag, Odense 2010, pp. 85-102.
  5. ↑ Melinda Menzer, In Praise of the Variant: A Critical History of Philology. ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Review), Bryn Mawr Review of Comparative Literature , Volume 2, Number 2, Spring 2001 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.brynmawr.edu