O'Donnell, 'On Philology'
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-v2n01-o'donnell-on

2.1.19, Jan Ziolkowski, ed.  *On Philology.*  University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 1990.  $8.95.  ISBN 0271007168. 
(Also published as vol.27, no. 1 1990 of the journal Comparative
Literature Studies.  Editorialcontents are identical.)
  Rev. by J.J. O'Donnell

   ``What is Philology?'' is the question asked by the convener of
thisHarvard symposium (held in March 1988) and addressed by a dozen
contributorsin all.  The papers are short (the dozen contributions
fill 78 pages) andlightly footnoted.  Most of the contributors are
classicists, but medieval,Celtic, and Afro-American studies are
also represented, with MargaretAlexiou's contribution on classical
and post-classical Greek literaturetaking the broadest view. 
Classicists on the panel include Ziolkowski,Clausen, Nagy, Watkins,
and Thomas.  Reference to other writers and theoristsis haphazard
at best, with only token bows to Saussure, de Man, and a veryfew
other contemporary theorists, and perhaps an over-emphasis on a
piece byWalter Jackson Bate on ``The Crisis in English Studies''
that appeared inHarvard Magazine in 1982.  The only non-Harvard
participant was JonathanCuller, invited as respondent.

   Difficile est saturam non scribere.  Difficult, but necessary.
Too muchsatire nowadays.  Too much digging trenches and lobbing
grenades.  Too muchpolarizing around bogus hypostases.  Too damn
many lines drawn in the sand. The underlying historical fact is
that philology is not a branch, or species,of metaphysics, but a
craft, an ink-stained trade with delusions of grandeur. The
philology practiced at any given moment is, in simplest terms,
``whatworks for me'' (ut nostrates aiunt).  The circumstances that
govern what doesin fact ``work for'' us are complex and labile.  At
the moment, we are facedwith a world in which what used to work for
most of us doesn't work for someof us, and what now works for some
of us doesn't work for others.  This is nonew thing, and it would
be dangerous to assume that the condition ispermanent.  And in the
meantime, it would be mere silly bad manners to behaveas though
there were two opposing camps with one or the other of which
everyscholar must align.

   The Harvard symposium was a failure because it was organized by
peoplewho thought they saw such polarization and were at a loss to
know how torespond.  What they did was gather a handful of
``philologists'' and havethem offer impressionistic and
ill-informed explanations of their craft; andto invite a single
member of the perceived opposition to come and comment. The results
are sterile and uninformative; worse, they are unhelpful and
theymake painful reading.  To my taste, a far better model for such
discourse maybe found in the ``New Philology'' symposium in the
January 1990 issue ofSpeculum.  That set of papers by medievalists
does not lead to any magicalresolution of issues or lightning
strokes of clarification, but consists ofa group of attempts to say
how what we used to think important and what weare now coming to
think important can be reconciled with each other. Exercises of
this sort are valuable and will, and should, continue until thegaps
have narrowed and the issues have not been resolved -- no
philosophicalissue raised by any thinker from the pre-Socratics to
the present can befairly said, I think, to have been resolved to
general satisfaction -- buthave simply disappeared, or ceased to
seem relevant or urgent.  The Harvardsymposium is in the end a
useful caution:  how not to think about theseissues.

James J. O'Donnell
University of Pennsylvania