THE REVISION OF PUBLISHED WORKS. fTo TEE EDITOR Of THE
" SPECTATOR."] Stn,—Mr. A. B. Walkley, in a recent article in the Times, has propounded the theory that an author, once he has published a piece of literature, is not justified in making alterations, barring grammatical slips or misprints. Such doctrine may be " magnificent," but is it true? Tennyson, an all but impeccable critic, would certainly have disagreed with the Walkleyan canon. When he issued the ever-memorable two volumes of 1842 what do we find? The poet had republished in this collection most of the older poems contained in the 1830-1833 volumes, but had so rehandled his material that in many places the poems were subtly transformed. In doing so he may have offended against a (somewhat arbitrary) canon of criticism, but he had certainly achieved a triumphant artistic success. Those who have carefully studied, say, " The Palace of Art " or " The Dream of Fair Women" in their original and in their later shapes, will hardly dispute this. Would Mr. Walkley grant leave to a writer to make drastic changes in. his work after the manu- script was finished, but before it was printed, or is his embargo laid solely on alteratiojis introduced afer the manuscript had been set up in type and published urbi et orbi 7 If alterations are justifiable in the one case why not in the other?
The exact point at which the line should be drawn between revision and reconstruction is, doubtless, not easy to determine, but an artist like Tennyson may be presumed to know his own business best. In any case, to deny the author his right to revise and (if need be) re-revise, seems to he hard doctrine, a doctrine to which I, for one, cannot subscribe.. The sole j ustifi- cation for all such literary changes will lie in their artistic fitness; if they are inappropriate, they will not survive; if the writer's Sei:repac EfipovriSes have been prompted by true aesthetic sense they will live. And justly so. In any case, securus judicat orbis terrarum.--I am, Sir, &c., E. H. BLAKENEY. Winchester College.
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