How bibliographic code helps to recognize the importance of text materialities

Abstract

While in literary analysis it is possible to express individual perceptions of reading, it is up to the ecdotic researchers to recover fundamental details to understand the transmission of printed texts — from the thorough philological search between different published versions to the historical reconstruction of an entire print run. To assist in updating an interpretive paradigm — that, contradictorily, does not perceive the presence of the books it reads — it is necessary to understand the importance of the “bibliographic code” concept for contemporary Literary Studies. Formulated by DF McKenzie and updated by Jerome McGann, studies of Textual Criticism with an English-speaking dimension help to understand a critical perspective towards a hermeneutical materialism, capable of encompassing broader notions about text, which also includes the material condition of what, in any medium, can be interpreted.