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A Comparative History of the Literary Draft in Europe
Edited by Olga Beloborodova and Dirk Van Hulle
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXV] 2024
► pp. 241–252

1.3.2
Revision

Rereading, reliving, rewriting

Understood in its broadest sense, as the amelioration or improvement of an earlier textual state, revision is a universal compositional practice. At the same time, authors’ ideas about revision, their capacity for making changes, and the changes themselves are strongly influenced by both the material circumstances of writing and by broader cultural ideas about originality and the ontology of artworks. In addition, the study of revision informs very different intellectual disciplines and methodologies: creative writing pedagogy; editorial practice; traditional biographical criticism; and genetic criticism. This chapter provides a basic typology of different types of revision and comments on the complex types of evidence with which critics have to contend.
Keywords: revision, creative writing, writing pedagogy, editing, typescript, manuscript, intentionality, revision history, modernism, Henry James, Mansfield Park
Article outline
  • Problems of definition
  • Types of revision
  • Evidence
  • Analysis
  • Notes
  • References
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References (28)
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