emendation

Emendation is the act of correcting a text that is corrupt or unclear, particularly in manuscripts or early printed works. The term derives from the Latin emendare, meaning to correct, and is used mainly in textual criticism and philology. An emendation aims to restore the author’s original wording by fixing errors introduced by scribes, printers, or copyists, or by clarifying ambiguous or faulty phrasing.

In practice, emendation ranges from minor orthographic fixes to substantial reconstructions of an original reading. Editors distinguish between conjectural emendation, made without direct manuscript support or based on minimal evidence, and editorial or scholarly emendation, which rests on manuscript evidence, context, and linguistic plausibility. Internal criteria (grammatical sense and stylistic consistency) and external criteria (comparison with other witnesses, quotations, or parallel texts) guide decisions. When emendations are proposed, editions typically indicate them in notes or brackets to separate them from the text as it appears in the manuscript; the original reading is often preserved in apparatus criticus.

Critics caution that emendation can introduce readings where none are attested, risking distortion of an author’s intent. Therefore, robust emendations rely on substantial evidence and transparent justification. In modern editions, emendation is part of the broader practice of textual criticism, scholarly editing, and digital text restoration.