Predicaments encountered during the Establishment of the Authenticity of a Writer’s Use of Literary Language in a Variant Textual Tradition

Sa？etak The paper discusses the editing and research challenges related to texts or oeuvres that have not survived in ideal conditions and forms, i.e., in a situation when from a source it is not clear what the precise intention of the author was in some text. Such perplexities often accompany research into and publication of the texts of old Croatian writers, mostly because there are few, or no, autographs or editions printed during the authors’ lifetimes. Because neither the language nor the orthography of Croatian writers in pre-Revival times were explicitly or implicitly standardised, even within a given literary circle, or area, it is hard only on the basis of variant textual sources to ascertain the features of their use of literary language. Undoubtedly the numerousness of manuscripts does help in editing and establishing all the parts of a given text. However, the question arises as to whether we are getting closer to the original language of the writer if in the establishment of a text we always choose that linguistic item that is confirmed in the majority of sources. Hence, wherever possible, it is necessary pursuant to some reliable benchmark (an autograph or an edition printed during the writer’s lifetime) to reconstruct the writer’s usus scribendi or least the principal characteristics of his language