Seeing Things

I don’t think marginal headings are a wise idea, especially in tandem with marginal indications of the original French pagination. First, for aesthetic reasons; I think it would distract from the movement of the thought. Second, I think it introduces an additional level of interpretive intervention — over and above the task of translation — that could be troubling to discerning readers who maintain divergent interpretations from those indicated by the marginal headers. While some supplementary critical apparatuses are very useful for difficult scholarly works in translation, I think this one falls on the side of obstructing M-P’s own mode of presentation, which I think is a bad thing.

Yes, those are precisely the two concerns that I had: that marginal headings would make the margins too busy and that they would be too interventionist. Thanks for raising them; they seem to me to be the central ones, and I’m certainly sensitive to them.

That said, it does seem to me that there is precedent for this kind of thing. As far as I can tell, it’s standard practice in some of the editions of the early modern philosophers (especially the texts in political philosophy, it seems to me) to put these kinds of marginal headings in. And I confess I find them useful aids. The question, I suppose, is whether it’s better to say something (even if it ends up being something there is good reason to disagree with), or better to say nothing at all. I’m still undecided. In a perfect world it would probably be ideal for people to read nothing but the primary text in the original language and avoid all other commentary. But doing a translation is already forsaking that ideal. The question is how far one wants to go.

P.S. - I deleted the second of your posts, since it was identical to the first. Did you post the same thing twice, or did the blog do that itself? I’m still new at all of this, but it seems that for some reason it takes a while for comments to show up as posted.

Here’s another possible approach. A facing-page edition, with the text on, say, the right and commentary on the left. Basically, Erasmus’ model for parallel-text translation … This could be further refined to separate out two kinds of commentative footnotes: the textual ones (different variants in MP’s own manuscript versions; translation issues) below the text; philosophical and other interpretative notes in the commentary. Pro: traditional method used in French scholarly editions of medieval and Renaissance texts. Ex. the “Roman de la Rose” in the Livre de Poche “Lettres Gothiques” and Champion Classiques pb. series follow this model, but with the original text on the left. The Livre de Poche “Bibliotheque Classique” Rabelais has text on right, commentary on left. Pro: clear separation of text from other stuff, so a reader can just read the text, without being bothered by marginal glosses. Having the text on the right is easier for this. Con: might make the final edition long and heavy???

Juliet: I very much like the idea of a facing text edition. When I had thought of it I was considering a bilingual edition, with the French on one side and the English on the other. I think these are common in some modern editions of French and German poetry, for example. But the idea of having the commentary on the facing side seems really interesting. It would certainly give you lots of space; and I’m glad to know about the historical precedent. Unfortunately,as you point out, it would mean doubling the size of the book. I’m pretty sure the editor will resist the idea of an edition that weighs in at over 1000 pages, but I’ll run it by him just in case. My current compromise solution it to write a longer commentary that will stand as a separate text, but not to write it until after the translation is done.

I would urge against marginal insertions. I do think helpers to say: MP is not in propria persona would be helpful for the student. I am currently teaching Hume’s Treatise in an edition from Oxford for students, ed. Norton and Norton. I think the apparatus in there is really quite good in terms of its technical structure. The text is straight Hume, with superscript daggers wherever the editors have something to say. There is a section of annotations at the back with a running head specifying what sections the annotations are for. Annotations are listed by paragraph number in a section, and they each start with a snippet of the text being annotated. So, you can read the text straight, and if you are puzzled, follow the dagger. You might want to give this text a look as possible model.

I should clarify: I think the subtitles are an excellent idea, but not further marginal insertions, which is where I thought the Hume edition provides a nice typographical/ structural model.