Nr. 3 (12) anul IV / iulie-septembrie 2006 - ROMDIDAC

versions, even those which contain erroneous emendations or redesign theconcrete appearance of the text, tell the history of its transmission. His study“Information on Information” suggests that different editions have their ownpersonality that bear the marks of their cultural context as they were added tothe text. Obviously, the image of the texts can restore their visual history or,as Michael Warren calls it, the “existential text” (the text as it was presentedto its contemporaries).It seems that McLeod appreciates the concreteness of the literary workand its iconicicty as a substantial compound of the meaning, sometimesexplicitly intended by the author. Lacking their visual context or aspect,literary works become incomplete and consequently, their readers’ responseis partial. In “Editing Shakespeare”, he also suggests that the text is acomplex “simultaneous whole” which consists in “integral units”: type-bytype composition, graphic “restyling” (distortions), errors, fonts, ink etc. Hedoes not seem to believe in corrections that presuppose the annulment ofthe previous editions. Whenever a new edition appears, it supplies anothershape that counts for its own vitality inserting “turbulence in the flow of text.” 8Typographical features of a text may provide the original effervescence ofthe text. The text is “infinitive” or “polymorphous” since it is a sort of endlessmultiple authoritative creation, implying the editorial process, as well. The“infinitive” text consists of the entire set of versions and documents that containfragments that belong to the text. It is historically accurate since it is closer tothe spirit of the era in which the text was created/performed. 9 Thus, authorialintentions are expanded over editorial intensions and cultural pressures.They all make the meaning and the significance of a work, without ignoring,annulling, erasing their forerunners.Editing the Whole Body of the TextText as a Speaking SubjectIn the chapter “From the Speaking Subject to the Inscribed Body”, PatrickFuery reinterprets the dialectic pair absence and presence in Heideggerianterms. He recalls Heidegger’s crossing over the concept of Sein and thephilosopher’s explanation: it does not represent a negation of Being. On thecontrary, the crossing out indicates the “focal point of existence,” which isintended to mark “subjectivity within the qualifying sense of presence.” 10 Hesubstitutes the crossed out Sein with the crossed out Voice in order to positthe speaking subject into a discursive context according to the more generalscheme of the presence and absence interplay. This erasure is a bipolar sign:it means that the crossed out voice is a sign of the speaker’s silent presence,since the voice stands metonymically for the body. On the other hand, it makesobvious its presence both to the speaking individual and to the others, thus itfunctions as a sign of the speaker’s participation in discursive practices.Similarly, Emily Dickinson’s poetics of erasure from the last documentsshe wrote plays a double role: the act of erasing scratches out the writing andthus enforces its presence, or it inscribes its body over the body of writingbecoming a metonymy of the writing. Under such philosophical and textualcircumstances, Dickinson’s fragments contain a dialogic game of the presenceand absence of writing, in which both presence and the crossed out presenceare significant for the concreteness of the text.Ex Ponto nr.3, 200683