In such cases the history of the text is more complex, since the text of the original work has its own history as well textual criticism here borders on comparative historical literary theory and on the theory of literary translation. Translations are subjected to critical study when classics of foreign literature are rendered into a native language, and also in the analysis of medieval literatures, which have often been enriched by translations, adaptations, and borrowings. Similarly, in the study of linguistic sources, the linguistic changes observed in a given work are an important subject of study for dialectology and historical linguistics. The text should be regarded as changeable. The textual criticism of historical sources does not exist as such and is divided between two other disciplines-the study of sources and archaeography.
Surviving autographs, as well as psychological and aesthetic evaluations, are used to support the critique of the text.
All the manuscripts and authorized editions of a text are analyzed and compared for critical verification with the author’s final version, for the study of the text’s history, and for the re-creation of the creative process. In modern literatures, with the development of the authorial element as well as the printing of multiple copies of authorized texts, the history of a text has come to mean the history of a text’s composition by its author the subsequent stages are of limited interest. The same is true of Eastern literary works, whose texts may combine literary and folkloric elements. Its text may exist in verbal, musical, or dramatic form and may be the direct result of improvisation. A work of folklore has many valid variations. The same is true with regard to folklore, where the concept of a text is particularly complex. All the stages in the history of such a text are significant, including later re workings taking place as a result of copying and of inclusion in compilations. In medieval Old Russian and Western literature the authorial element is of minor importance. However, textual criticism of some works dating from the age of printing, such as those of Shakespeare, requires refined research methods as well. To a lesser degree, this is true of medieval texts. The establishment of texts of classical literary works generally involves reconstruction by means of hypotheses, conjectures, sophisticated critical methods, and the filling in of lacunae the reestablished text remains hypothetical. The critical study of historical sources and works of oral folklore involves special problems. Textual criticism deals with classical, medieval, and modern literature.
The branch of philology that studies works of literature and folklore in order to verify, establish, and organize their texts for subsequent research, interpretation, and publication.