PERSICA XVII, 2OO1 THE MODES OF LITERARY PRODUCTION: REMARKS ON THE COMPOSITION, REVISION AND "PUBLICATION" OF'PERSIAN TEXTS IN THE ME.DIEVAL PERIOD Franklin Lewis Emory University -) Persianists in Europe and in Iran have been codifying manuscripts and publishing critical editions of texts for over two centuries now, yet only in the last decade has a pro- gram in codicology and paleography at the University of Tehran been established to sys- tematically pass on the collective wisdom and experience of the great textual scholars. A wealth of information about the manuscript transmission of isolated literary works can of course be gleaned from the introductions to numerous critical editions and from a variety of studies. However, no one has as yet pieced these together to create a systematic nzrrra- tive history of Persian manuscript culture in particular (as opposed to the manuscript cul- tures of Classical Greek and Latin, or the various vernaculars of medieval Europe), its scribal traditions, the history of its royal scriptoria and medieval libraries, the economics of the Persian manuscript trade, and so forth.l A comprehensive historical study of the development of literary transmission, the processes by which literary works were pro- duced, published and preserved in the chirographic environment of the medieval and early modem period would undoubtedly enhance the efforts of those working to produce critical texts of Persian literature, by creating a greater degree of consensus and standardi- zation in editorial decisions.2 1 The countless articles and introductions to specific manuscripts by Iraj 4136r, Mohammad-Taqi DAne5paZuh, Mojtabe Minovi, Fritz Meier, Hellmut Ritter, Bo Utas, Mahmoud Omid Salar among others, are far too numerous to list here. A brief but quite helpful introductory manual about the history of specifically Persian manuscript culture may be found in Mehdi Baydni Ketdbiendsi-e ketdb-h6-ye xatti, Tehran, 1353/ 1974. Much additional information can be gleaned from some of the more sophisticated manuscript cata- logues, such as Blochet, Brockelmann, Sezgin and Monzavi. J. Pedersen, The Arabic Book, trans. G. French, Princeton, NJ, 1984, and George Atiyeh, ed., The Book in the Islamic World, Albany, NY, 1995, are models for the type of study I am proposing here, the importance of which was suggested to me by Prof. de Bruijn's excellent discussion of the complex manuscript history of San6i's works in his Of Piety and Poetry, Leiden, I 983. 2 Although the majority of editors of critical editions undoubtedly hold a great many assumptions in cofllmon, it would nevertheless brc helpful to make these more explicit, as Djalal Khaleqi-Motlagh has done in "Moarrefi-e qeteat-e elhdqi-e SAhnAme," Gol-e ranj-hd-ye kohan, ed. Ali Dehb65i, Tefuan 137211993, pp. 128-170, and in his introduction to Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh (The Book of Kings), Costa Mesa, CA. and NY, 1990, vol. 1, pp. xxiii-xxix.