A Rat and Its Redactors: Silent Co-Authorship in Kalīla wa-Dimna

Abstract

The article investigates Kalīla wa-Dimna as a multilingual text which underwent massive change over centuries, especially in its Arabic phase, which is the present focus. Out of three types of sources for the work, indirect transmission, medieval translations, and complete manuscripts, the last group is analysed in greater detail, based on a sample of seven manuscripts. As a text sample, the short chapter of the Cat and the Rat is chosen. The interpretative method is comparative narratology, and regarding the editing procedure, a synoptic digital edition has been opted for, which juxtaposes versions for comparison, as opposed to a stemmatic reconstruction of any putative “original.” On this basis, the text’s changes in the seven manuscripts are classified and interpreted. The alterations can be identified to a large extent as selective and targeted, and they lead to a fluctuation of the text. In those three of the seven manuscripts, in which the rewriting is most extensive, distinct trends can be observed, insofar as the protagonists and the plot are given specific and varying foci. These can be regarded as the outcome of a silent redaction process that approximates co-authorship, and which was performed by copyists who remained mostly anonymous. These results, being partial and preliminary, require further study to confirm the scope and consistency of such textual interference. The study is part of the ongoing research project “The Arabic Anonymous in a World Classic” (acronym: AnonymClassic), funded by the European Research Council and located at Freie Universität Berlin.