Corrigenda, Errata, and a Soiled Fish of the Sea

Sometimes the archive will expose a misguided line of reasoning, a scholarly pursuit of an idea built on an error. A famous instance of this was esteemed literary critic F. O. Matthiesen’s fascination with Herman Melville’s phrase “soiled fish of the sea” in the novel White Jacket.

A look at the manuscript reveals the phrase to be “coiled fish of the sea.” It was a misprint.

So what do we make of Matthiesen’s analysis of the soiled fish? Matthiesen’s peers were kind and didn’t discount all of his work on the idea. Tom Paulin (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books-the-art-of-criticism-3-getting-it-wrong-1569176.html) sums up their reaction:

The craggy textual scholar Fredson Bowers was dismayed by the vulnerability of Matthiessen's judgement, though in fairness he includes a remark by one John W Nichol, who said that the "change" - "mistake" he means - does not invalidate Matthiessen's general critical position: "It merely weakens his specific example." Nevertheless, Nichol adds that such a "textual slip" could in the proper context have offered "an entirely false conception.

Nichols was forgiving. Matthiesen was, doubtless, embarrassed.

This episode in literary, critical history preoccupies me, not so much in my theoretical work, but as I construct a digital archive. The number of mistakes I’ve found in metadata—and those found by others working on the project—are more than I’d like to admit, and my project is small.

There’s a point at which concession is necessary for practicality.