Abstract

The article explores the interface between literature and ideas by highlighting a core »literary« idea, the notion of the text itself. All »text-immanent« interpretation reposes, after all, on the work of editors. Recent debates in textual editing are reviewed to demonstrate how difficult – or for some, how undesirable – it is to fix the identity of the text. Both orthodox and antinomian positions on textual identity are themselves fueled by »ideas.«