Textual Process and the Denial of Origins

Genetic rhetorical criticism: An alternative methodology for studying multi-versioned rhetorical works

“…The openness of textual works underscores how "all texts may be viewed as part of an ongoing process and that the act of publication does not necessarily mark the endpoint of processwhich many texts may never achieve or want to achieve." 28 Thus, in contrast to methodological approaches that view textual works as synchronous representations of authorial design, genetic rhetorical criticism views rhetorical works as a set of written patterns that spread diachronically. 29 Tracking how a rhetorical work engages different audiences over the course of its production and revision allows archivists to "reconstruct a continuity between everything that precedes a text and that same text in its definitive form."…”

“…26 Genetic rhetorical criticism defines work as the theoretical and material sum of extant textual versions that have been produced and collected over the course of a writing process. Rhetorical works may exist in a variety of textual forms, but they are most often identified by formal or thematic patterns that obtain among extant textual versions.…”

Romantic notions of creativity now

“…Sullivan likewise comments on how the swathe of facsimile editions published from the 1970s on have more or less 'languished on the shelves' (2013, p. 56). To bring a third voice to the table, textual theorist Sally Bushell (2007) criticises the fact that -for all our now TEXT Special Issue 64: Poetry Now eds Jessica L. Wilkinson, Cassandra Atherton & Sarah Holland-Batt, October 2021 'unprecedented access to the draft materials of texts through facsimile editions and archives', and in spite of the inroads French genetic criticism has made -textual study retains its erstwhile status within the Anglo-American academy as 'a highly specialised activity rather than being recognised as having the potential to significantly redefine our understanding of a text' (p. 101).…”