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Lacuna (manuscripts)
 
 
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A lacuna is a gap in a manuscript
Manuscript

A manuscript is any document that is written by hand, as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material or scratched as with a knife point in plaster or with a stylus on a wa...
, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work.

The state of old manuscripts or inscriptions which have weathered or been damaged sometimes gives rise to lacunae — passages consisting of a word or words that are missing or illegible. Palimpsests are particularly subject to lacunas. In order to reconstruct the original text, the context is to be considered. In archaeology
Archaeology

Archaeology, archeology, or arch?ology is the science that studies Homo cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, Artifact , features, Biofact s, and cultural landscape....
 and literary criticism
Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals....
 this may sometimes lead to competing reconstructions and consequent interpretations.






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Encyclopedia


A lacuna is a gap in a manuscript
Manuscript

A manuscript is any document that is written by hand, as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material or scratched as with a knife point in plaster or with a stylus on a wa...
, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work.

The state of old manuscripts or inscriptions which have weathered or been damaged sometimes gives rise to lacunae — passages consisting of a word or words that are missing or illegible. Palimpsests are particularly subject to lacunas. In order to reconstruct the original text, the context is to be considered. In archaeology
Archaeology

Archaeology, archeology, or arch?ology is the science that studies Homo cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, Artifact , features, Biofact s, and cultural landscape....
 and literary criticism
Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals....
 this may sometimes lead to competing reconstructions and consequent interpretations. Published texts containing lacunae often mark the section where the missing text is with a […]. For example, "This sentence contains 20 words, and […] nouns." Another example is "one kilogram equals one […] grams" where the word 'thousand' is lost in a lacuna in the manuscript.

Famous examples


  • A famous Old English example of a lacuna is in the manuscript British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A. xv, the poem Beowulf
    Beowulf

    Beowulf is an Old English language heroic Epic poetry of unknown authorship, dating as recorded in the Nowell Codex manuscript from between the 8th to the early 11th century, and relates events described as having occurred in what is now Denmark and Sweden....
    :
hyrde ich thaet [... ...On]elan cwen. (Fitt 1, line 62)
This particular lacuna is always reproduced in editions of the text, but many people have attempted to fill it, notably editors Wyatt-Chambers and Dobbie, among others, who accept the verb "waes" (was). Malone (1929) proposed the name Yrse for the unnamed queen, as it would then alliterate with Onela
Onela

Onela was according to Beowulf a Suiones king during the first half the 6th century. He was the son of Ongentheow and the brother of Ohthere....
. This is still hotly debated amongst editors though.


  • Another notable lacuna is the eight-leaves-long Great Lacuna
    Great Lacuna

    The Great Lacuna is a Lacuna of eight leaves where there was heroic Old Norse poetry in the Codex Regius. The gap would have contained the last part of Sigrdr?fum?l and most of Sigur?arkvi?a....
     in the Codex Regius
    Codex Regius

    Codex Regius is an Icelandic manuscript in which the Poetic Edda is preserved. It is made up of 45 vellum leaves, thought to have been written in the 1270s in poetry....
    , the most prominent source for Norse mythology
    Norse mythology

    Norse, Viking or Scandinavian mythology comprises the beliefs, myths and legends of the Norse paganism of the North Germanic language people, including those who settled on Faroe Islands and Iceland, where most of the written sources for Norse mythology were assembled....
     and early Germanic heroic legends. Luckily parts of it survived in independent manuscripts and in prose form in the Völsunga saga.


  • In Codex Leicester
    Minuscule 69

    Minuscule 69 , d 505 , known as Codex Leicester, or Codex Leicestrensis.It is a Greek Lower case manuscript of the New Testament on paper and parchment leaves....
     the text skips from Acts
    Acts of the Apostles

    The Acts of the Apostles is a book of the Bible, which now stands fifth in the New Testament. It is commonly referred to as simply Acts. The title "Acts of the Apostles" was first used by Irenaeus in the late second century, but some have suggested that the title "Acts" be interpreted as "the Acts of the Holy Spirit" or even "the Acts...
     10:45 to 14:17 without a break; possibly a scribe rewrote it from a defective manuscript.


See also

  • Unfinished work
    Unfinished work

    An unfinished work is a creative work that has not been finished. Its creator might have chosen never to finish it, or have been prevented by circumstances outside of his or her control ....