Growth Texts
Layered

Under this subtype we list examples where the accretions to a text are relatively few in number and relatively large in extent, and where we also conclude that the author (or original text-producing group) has supplied the new material; for nonauthorial addenda, see the Extended subtype. The distinction is purely for convenience of presentation, since there many examples of all these varieties.

The typical text layer is a modular addition at the end of the previous text (more rarely at the beginning), but in some cases the new material is distributed over the whole of the previous work.

Chinese Examples

Dzwo Jwan. The original work seems to have been a brief ritual commentary on the Chun/Chyou, composed in Lu the early middle 04c, shortly after the previously unknown Chun/Chyou came into Confucian hands. This core was extended in the late middle 04c by the addition of several series of anecdotal and political theory material, not as separate blocks of text, but distributed over the previous commentary, which like the Chun/Chyou text itself is chronologically arranged. These middle layers are ideological in nature, and embody contrasting ideas about what might be called political ethics: the relation of the human world to heavenly power. A final layer, added toward the end of the 04th century, abandons the idea of an ethical Heaven and assumes a more mechanistic one, with power a sufficient validating force in human events. That layer is strongly pro-Chi, and includes predictions of Chi greatness. It was almost certainly made for presentation to the Chi court, about the year 0312, and seems to imply a shift of the original DJ compilation group to the state of Chi; there are grounds for suspecting that such a move could have taken place, under the aegis of Mencius, in 0317 (see Brooks). The result of these many philosophical and political position changes, each embodied in increasingly long and literarily effective narrative episodes, is the longest text which survives from the Warring States period.

Sundz 1-13. The original 12-chapter Sundz (for which see Accretional) was complete by the end of the 04c. Time passed, and the Wu Chi text appeared, adding to the literature of the subject. Apparently as an attempt at renewal, the Sundz proprietors added a 13th chapter, on espionage. It differs in being essentially monothematic, and also much more Machiavellian than anything preceding; it has something of the atmosphere of intrigue which we find in the Arthashastra. For the later non-authorial expansion of the Sundz, see Extended.

Wu Chi. Like the earlier Sundz, this early 03c military treatise underwent expansion by its original proprietors. The core is a body of sayings directly attributed to "Master Wu;" these occur in 5 of the present 6 chapters. To these were added other material within those chapters, and (not necessarily at the same time) a 6th chapter on the character of the armies, and societies, of the various Warring States.

Shr Ji. This carefully planned work (see Figurate) was largely completed by (a) its designer Szma Tan at the time of his death in early 0109. His son Chyen (b), who succeeded him as Grand Astrologer in 0107, added new chapters and completed some unfinished ones, but still left ten of the planned 130 chapters either totally or substantially unfinished at his death in early 090. After Chyen's death, further additions or suppletions were made by (c) Chyen's grandson Yang Ywn, Ywn's friend (d) Chu Shau-sun (who conveniently signed his contributions), and finally (e) by Fvng Shang, who was appointed by the then Emperor to finish the job; Fvng died in or shortly after 020. Further editorial effort was probably required to fully reconcile the family copy and the Palace copy of the work. Of these successive attempts to complete the work, only Chyen added to its design; the three contributors after him were concerned to update the work to their own time.

In a sense, the final update of the Shr Ji was the Han Shu, written by several members of the Ban family. The Bans were able to view the Han as a finished entity (it had technically ended with the usurpation of Wang Mang in 9 AD), rather than struggle to keep up with a moving quantity. (For the repeated shifting forward of the end date of the Shr Ji, see in Redirected).

Other Examples

Plato's Republic. There are clear signs that this dialogue originally consisted of its present first chapter, and some indications that as a separate composition, Republic 1 was known as the Thrasymachus, from its leading character. In the usual chronological ordering of Plato's dialogues, the Republic is the only one up to that time to be written in more than one section. The remainder, Republic 2-10, is signaled at its beginning as a resumption ("With these words, I was thinking that I had made an end of the discussion"); compare Horace's Carmina, below. Grube, who regards the Republic as integral, says that Republic 1 "might well be called the most dramatic and artfully contrived of the Socratic dialogues. It is extremely vivid throughout and forms an excellent introduction to the whole Republic" (White 13 calls it a "prologue"). The remaining sections of the Republic abandon vividness and renounce drama; they are an extended talky exploration of the subject with a new antagonist, Glaucon. (White notes that the problem of the work "is posed anew" at the beginning of Republic 2). The remainder of the Republic maintains a tone of systematic prescription for the ideal state. Literary analysis shows continuity of style, and the best conclusion is that Republic 2-9 are a self-resumption, not a later appendage.

Kautilya's Arthashastra. Hartmut Scharfe examined the Pali-isms in this Sanskrit work (which in such a context are signs of lateness), and noticing that they occurred in all 17 of its Books, concluded that the entire work must be late. What he missed was the distribution within chapters: Pali-isms never occur in the pronouncements directly attributed to Chandragupta's minister Kautilya or the predecessors he cites, which by the same test must be linguistically early within the work. It also emerges that the milieu implied by the Kautilya material is not far advanced from a Palace society, developmentally earlier than the huge trade-based bureaucracy described in other portions of the work, which among other details pointing to the 03rd century at earliest, specifically mentions trade goods from "Cina.". In absolute terms, the Kautilya material offers few discordances (whereas other parts of the work offer many) with the eyewitness description of Megasthenes, a Greek envoy to the court of Chandragupta. We thus seem to have a small and early core of material which is attributed to, and may date to the time of, Kautilya in the early Maurya period. We also have a large amount of text reflecting an advanced trading bureaucracy in which Pali is part of the linguistic ambience; this would be appropriate for the time of Chandragupta's grandson Asoka, under whom the Maurya dynasty reached the height of its success. Some details of the work are thought to refer to conditions of a still later time. We may conclude that an original text of small extent, and bearing signs of late 04th century date was subsequently updated to fit conditions obtaining under Asoka, and perhaps again updated for conditions still later, but under something like the same aegis or sponsorship throughout. This is what is meant by a layered text.

The exact number and probable date of the later Arthashastra layers are questions which are still under study. Meanwhile, the Kautilya material has been extracted from the huge work in which it now plays a minor part, and grouped for separate study elsewhere at this site.

Horace Carmina 1-4. Horace's lyrics (conventionally "Odes," a misleading label) are in four Books, the first three seemingly published in 023, and the fourth in 013. The fourth is universally recognized as a resumptive extension of the first three. Signals of the intended finality of Books 1-3 include the framing first and last poems, both claiming poetic immortality for Horace, and both in a meter (the 1st Asclepiadean) not otherwise used in Books 1-3. Signs of the resumptive nature and later date of Book 4 include the wry first poem, emblematically resisting the temptations of Venus to engage in further amorous affairs, the consistent "old man" persona, the different treatment of the Sapphic meter, the virtuosic references to poems in Books 1-3 (there are no similar references in a reverse direction; that is, Book 4 is aware of Books 1-3 but not vice versa), and the topical references, which are later than anything in Books 1-3.

If we also admit external evidence, we have Horace's own renunciation of lyric poetry (Epistle 1:19, of c020, this being a few years later than his finalization of Carmina 1-3, which is obliquely noted in the slightly earlier Epistle 1:13), and Augustus' wish to have certain military exploits celebrated in verse (thus Suetonius, who wrote later but with access to the Imperial archives, and thus to Augustus's correspondence). This is a neat example of a text which was clearly extended by layering, but where the layering was also clearly done by the original author.

Luke. Before it became a public text, the Gospel of Luke went through at least two phases. In the first, the Markan order of events was closely followed. In the second, that order was altered in about eight places, and the narrative itself was revised, in order to give greater intelligibility. Perhaps also at this time, an elaborate genealogy and birth narrative were appended to the beginning of the text, in imitation of those features in the Gospel of Matthew, but with the intention of surpassing them in vividness and point. In this, the author has brilliantly succeeded.

The implications of accretional Mark (see above) are minimal for the so-called Synoptic Problem, since apparently all growth in Mark was complete before any other Gospel was begun. However, if the above analysis is correct, the case is different with Luke, since its second phase of growth occurred within the Synoptic timespan, In its earlier form, Luke is close to Mark and knows nothing of Matthew; in its later form, it departs significantly from Mark and borrows details from Matthew. That is, Luke must occupy not one, but two, positions in the sequence of Synoptic indebtedness, and the Synoptic Problem cannot be solved without redefining it so as to include this possibility. The correct solution of the Synoptic Problem at this moment, then, seems to be:

Mark > Proto-Luke > Matthew > Canonical Luke

Mendelssohn wrote his Midsummer Night's Dream overture at the age of 17, as a youthful prodigy. For a gala performance in Potsdam 17 years later, he revisited the subject, and added a second layer by providing music at every point where Shakespeare's text called for it. The late material is perfectly consistent in tone and charm with the early material. The whole is not only a prodigy of appropriateness to the atmosphere of the text, but a miracle of self-inscenation, recapturing a youthful inspiration as though the youth had laid down his pen only a moment earlier. No one should die without hearing the play performed with the music; Mendelssohn has made Shakespeare's play incomplete, even inconceivable, without it.

 

Philology is Copyright © 2001- by E Bruce Brooks

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