The Nature of 'A Work' by Smiraglia Richard P

Author:Smiraglia, Richard P.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scarecrow Press Inc.
Published: 2001-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

The heretofore abstract concept of a work, therefore, begins to take on the parameters of a cultural phenomenon. A new work clearly is unique at the point of its creation, and its ownership is clear for that single moment when the work is fixed for the first time in tangible form. At this point the work has the quality of the linguistic signifier—immutable and clearly definable both in its ideational and semantic content and in its social role for the culture in which it is created. But once the work is released to the public it becomes inherently mutable in a variety of ways. Works are volatile; changeable in the expression of their content, variable in their perception among those who receive them, and constantly evolving in ownership as they progress through their collaborative social roles.

There is undoubtedly ambiguity in the concept of the work. But viewed from the perspective of Saussure’s linguistic signs or Yngve’s human communicative activity we arrive at a very useful and defining dichotomy of immutability-mutability in the nature of a work. Peirce ([1894] 1998, 5) asserted a relevant triad of signs, or symbols (the mutable package) in which likenesses are icons that convey ideas by imitating them, and indications or indices have a physical connection with something. This triad incorporates a dichotomy—the mutable symbols that derive from immutable conceptual origins. Thus we replace the arbitrariness of the abstract concept of the work with a definitive changeling. Works change over time, they take on new meanings as they are assimilated in cultures, they reflect their perceptions, and they evolve in content and tangibility.

And works are cultural artifacts. Evolved works are the collaborative effort of the cultures in which they have been assimilated, spurred by editors and other conservators who serve as the catalysts for each evolutionary instantiation. This is true in their single instantiations where they represent and reflect the confluence of particular cultural, commercial and technological forces. It is also true and clearly observable in the collectivity of their bibliographic families. Bibliographic families demonstrate the specific and concrete evolution of works across time and across cultural boundaries. By examining bibliographic families it is possible to observe the cultural forces that have shaped a work’s evolution.

In the next chapter we will review some quantitative parameters of the observed mutability of works in the bibliographical universe.

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