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The Role of Copyists (Warrāqūn) in the Production of Texts and
Titles
| Prof. Stefan Leder |
Certain types of
intertextual relationships which accompany literary production in general,
as well as occurrences of abundance and scarcity of manuscript copies, are
related to the particularities of manuscript production. Manuscripts, their
forms and functions, result from a complex and varied conceptual framework
of scripturality, and manuscripts are not always meant to furnish libraries.
This paper deals with two interrelated phenomena. The participation of
professional copyists in the production of texts often leads to the
inclusion of their material in larger works. The utility of older material
(ajzā’) imbedded in new compositions may thus expire, and the textual basis
of much of what is reproduced is not manifest, neither textually nor
physically. Thus, the disappearance of libraries may be inherent in literary
production. New texts composed may of course manipulate this material, as
the material itself may also be pseudo-epigraphic.
In large parts of “tradition-literature”, including early historiography,
adab and philology, manuscripts not only transmit texts, but also document
the transmission, which may be ritualistically or functionally orientated.
In the first case, documentation may abound and the text, although visually
in the centre, may become marginal. This type of text often is a
reconstruction answering to the need of referring to older layers of the
scriptural tradition, layers which are not preserved in manuscripts. In the
second case, works based on earlier – sometimes lost – material are
disseminated by a large number of “transmitted” manuscript copies, meant to
generate new ones, which reproduce the framed text, but draw on the
documentation that goes along with it. |
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