# Elusive Environments: De-Contextualization and
Re-Contextualization

Daniel Ferrer

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Daniel Ferrer. Elusive Environments: De-Contextualization and Re-Contextualization. Variants, 2025, 19, pp.7-13. 10.4000/15dnv. hal-05462648

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# Elusive Environments: De-Contextualization and Re-Contextualization

Daniel Ferrer

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OpenEdition
Journals

**Electronic version**

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/variants/1927

DOI: 10.4000/15dnv

ISSN: 1879-6095

**Publisher**

European Society for Textual Scholarship

**Printed version**

Date of publication: December 1, 2025

Number of pages: 7-13

ISSN: 1573-3084

**Electronic reference**

Daniel Ferrer, "Elusive Environments: De-Contextualization and Re-Contextualization", *Variants* [Online], 19 | 2025, Online since 01 December 2025, connection on 22 December 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/variants/1927 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/15dnv

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# Elusive Environments: De-Contextualization and
Re-Contextualization

Daniel Ferrer

Vignette

GENETIC CRITICISM should never forget that the draft (as an embodiment of the creative process) is not isolated.<fnref n="1" /> It is not immune from external influences. On the manuscripts themselves, we can see authors like Stendhal complaining about the quality of the ink they are using, the table they are writing upon, or the eye-glasses they have to wear. Wars, diseases, love affairs and financial problems are reflected, directly or indirectly, in the drafts. We know that creation is determined by the historical situation, by socio-economic conditions and by personal problems of all sorts. The fluctuations of the context doubtlessly influence the evolution of the draft. It will be the task of the next generation of genetic critics to articulate this influence of the environment of the draft with what is really the core of our investigation: the internal logic that rules the development of the drafting.

Strictly speaking, however, the proximate environment of the text being drafted on a manuscript is not external: it is the margin that surrounds it. The margin embodies the future of the text, since this is the place where additions are usually inscribed before they are incorporated into the next version. But when drafting migrates to the next version, it is indeed the previous draft as a whole that becomes the main element of the environs of the draft, certainly the most influential. And it is not a unidirectional influence. This context acts upon the draft, but it is also acted upon. There is an interaction between the drafting and the previous versions, in so far as the earlier versions are constantly reinterpreted in relation to the development of the writing project. Of course, in born-digital texts, there are often no margins and there is often no succession of different versions, but rather a continuous, "fluid" modification of a single version. However, the same interaction between the past of the text and its future takes place at a different level.

More generally we know that, even when it is not disrupted by the interfer-

<footnote n="1">1. This is a version of a paper that was delivered at the conference, "Genesis – Taipei 2023: The Draft and its Environs: From the Writer's Desk to the Desktop" (National Central University, 28–29 September 2023).</footnote>
ence of external events, the continuity of the creative intent is constantly broken, because the implementation of each decision taken in the course of the creative process opens unforeseen possibilities and precludes others: it modifies the context in which the next decision has to be taken.

One of my favourite examples of the importance of context in the writing process is the case of a batch of proofs for *Ulysses* on which Joyce wrote some important corrections (substantial additions).<fnref n="2" /> The proofs arrived too late for the printer to implement the changes. Rather than waste them, Joyce decided to reuse them on the next batch of proofs, so that he inserted the additions in a different place in the novel, a few weeks later. That is to say that they were used *in a different place* and *a few weeks later*: in a different narrative context and in a different genetic context (by genetic context, I mean at a slightly different stage in the genesis of the book). The result is that the insertion was modified in a double perspective. It was adapted to the situation of the new passage in which it was inserted, but it also showed a distinct stylistic inflexion: in the short time that had elapsed between the first and the second insertion, Joyce's project had evolved ever so slightly: we can see very clearly that it had moved closer to the style of Joyce's next book (*Finnegans Wake*). The multilingual aspect, which was already present in the first version of the addition, is accentuated in the later version.

In this case, a perturbation in the material environment of the draft (a problem of transmission and a technical problem in the printing house) had a direct effect on the drafting of the work: it prevented the additions to go where Joyce had wanted them to go. At this point, however, it is a different logic that takes over, a logic of de-contextualization and re-contextualization within the work and within the drafting process. This illustrates what Jacques Derrida has called the essential "iterability" of writing, its "possibility of functioning cut off, at a certain point, from its 'original' meaning and from its belonging to a saturable and constraining context" (Derrida 1982, 320). But at the same time, we, geneticists, find that, in the new environment, there remains what I have called a *memory of the context* (Ferrer 2011, 109-113; tr. in Ferrer 2025, 77-80).

According to McLuhan's famous dictum, the medium is the message. The geneticist finds that the medium – or rather, the media through which the text has been transmitted – are somehow incorporated into the message: they have become part of it. Something of the original context remains, but it is completely reinterpreted in the new environment.

I have used the example of Joyce's proofs several times (in different contexts), so rather than developing it here, I shall take my examples from a very different field, the field of architecture.<fnref n="3" /> It seems a good choice because construction usually takes place over a much longer period of time than writing and

<footnote n="2">2. For a full analysis of this example, see the first chapter of Ferrer (2023).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3. I do not claim to be competent on this subject. The following examples are purely illustrative, *ad usum litterati*. On the genesis of architecture, see the special issue of *Genesis* (de Biasi and Legault 2000).</footnote>
involves many different actors, so that it is easy to find equivalent examples of unexpected circumstances that disrupt the course of creation and emphasize the process of continuous re-contextualization that is always going on in every creative work, but remains normally only faintly perceptible.

Take the cathedral of Cremona in Italy. Building started at the beginning of the 12th century (in 1107), but 10 years later, as the construction was proceeding to completion, it was destroyed by an earthquake (a rather extreme example of the influence of external circumstances on the creative process). It took a few years for the community to recuperate from the disaster but construction started again in 1129. However, it was probably not exactly the same cathedral that they set out to build (or re-build). There were the lessons of the first attempt to take into account: the problems and insufficiencies of the first design could be corrected with hindsight. For instance, they probably wanted something more resistant. But there is more than that. Twenty-two years later, the stylistic context had somewhat changed: the prevailing style was still Romanesque, but a later form of Romanesque.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: Romanesque sculptures integrated into the porch of cathedral of Cremona (Italy). Both images by the author, licensed under CC BY 4.0.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

Figure 2: The cathedral of Cremona (Italy). Image by Frank Fleschner from Kirksville, United States, licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Although the original building had been destroyed by the earthquake (we don't know to what extent) some elements remained that were worth saving and incorporating into the new project because they were artistically or religiously significant. For instance, the very beautiful but rather archaic sculptures were now integrated in the porch (see Figure 1); or the picturesque frieze, representing the months of the year, that was inserted in the facade of the church (see Figure 2).

We do not know what the original context of these works was, but we can see that they stand out as very archaic in the new context. This contrast was gradually accentuated because the context kept evolving. As the building of the cathedral continued, the prevailing style became Gothic. It is striking to see the lively Romanesque frieze juxtaposed with the graceful, slender statues, in the International Gothic style, that were added above it (see Figure 2).

When the Renaissance came, a majestic superstructure at the top and an elegant loggia at the basis were added, providing an even greater contrast (see Figure 3a). Thus, elements of the previous version of the cathedral were incorporated into the new design, into the very fabric of the final version of the building, which is completely different from anything that the first builders could even have imagined. This new context transforms these elements at the same time as their presence affects the course of the construction.
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>(a) Front view.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>(b) Bell tower.</figcaption></figure>

Figure 3: The cathedral of Cremona in Italy. Figure 3a by @trolvag; Figure 3b by @Morn. Both images licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

As far as we know, the builders of the new cathedral probably also reused part of the foundations of the original building, but this we cannot see, because the foundations are, by definition, buried under the construction. In the same way, previous versions that serve as foundations for later versions are often invisible (or nearly invisible) because they have been obfuscated by later elaborations. The same is metaphorically true of literary texts, but it is literally the case in painting: previous versions are usually concealed under the more recent layers of paint, and under normal circumstances they can only be partly recovered using X-ray photography.

On the other hand, the chronology of the development can be grasped at first sight in the case of the bell tower that accompanies the cathedral of Cremona. The stylistic development coincides with the elevation of the construction (if we disregard the Renaissance Logia, at the basis, which is a later addition; see Figure 3, and esp. 3b).

The lower part is a masterpiece of Romanesque engineering and architecture, very solid, with very few apertures. Then elegant geminated windows appear and bring their rhythm. Then an arcature is introduced, just below the Guelfic battlements. Finally the tower was crowned by an elegant spire, Gothic, or early Renaissance, completely different in spirit from the body of the building, but still echoing the shape of the Medieval windows lower down. In this instance, the evolution of the original project is plainly visible in the verticality of the tower, each new development resting on the previous ones, conditioned by it and harmonizing with it.
However, things are not always that simple, even in architecture. Take the nave of the church of San Lorenzo in Genoa (see Figure 4). Something very strange is immediately noticeable here: an inversion of the expected stratigraphy of styles. The bottom row of arches is Gothic while the upper row is Romanesque. Moreover, we notice that the ogival arches are rather flat. They do not bring the lightness of structure that is typical of the Gothic. The reason for this anomaly is that the bottom row of arches was damaged by a fire and was reconstructed later, in the then prevailing Gothic style. The presence of the upper gallery prevented the Gothic arches from rising higher than the previous Romanesque vaults. This is a clear illustration of the "memory of the context": a state that is no longer extant, an element that has been eradicated (here: the burnt Romanesque lower gallery) has left its trace and indirectly contributes to the shaping of the final version.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>(a) First floor view.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>(b) Ground floor view.</figcaption></figure>

Figure 4: Nave of the church of San Lorenzo in Genoa (Italy). Both images by the author, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

This very peculiar example can be generalized. Instead of serving as a foundation upon which creation may soar, the past of the work can act as an overwhelming weight, curbing its development. It is at least a limitation, a constraint. In *Logiques du brouillon* I described this as an "inertia of the already written" (Ferrer 2011, 68; tr. in Ferrer 2025, 68). I now find this presentation of things misleading. The already-written is not inert and it is not static, it is an active force that exerts an influence on the new writing at the same time as the new writing reinterprets the already-written.

This is what Pierre Bourdieu says about Manet, whose paintings were the basis of a symbolic revolution:

> a symbolic revolution overturns cognitive, and sometimes social, structures, which become invisible the more they become generally recognized, widely known and incorporated by all the perceiving subjects in a
social universe. Our own categories of perception and judgment – those we ordinarily use to understand the representations of the world and the world itself – were created by this successful symbolic revolution. The representation of the world created by this revolution is therefore self-evident – indeed, it is so self-evident that the scandal provoked by Manet's works itself is surprising if not scandalous.

(Bourdieu 2017, 3–4)

We can say the same thing about a few major artists, like Joyce for instance: he has transformed the literary context to such an extent that we find it difficult to understand why early readers found his works so shocking and so incomprehensible at the same time. In the same way, we can consider that, on a small scale, every draft perpetrates a tiny symbolic revolution and creates a new context that modifies the perspective of the writer (or artist) on their own project. It also modifies our own perception of the previous versions so that it is almost impossible for us to recover the original project that they embodied. We are influenced by the subsequent versions and the overwhelming presence of the final work. This is the reason why unfinished works are so interesting to geneticists: because they are not under the sway of a final version that inevitably reconfigures the past.

## Bibliography

BOURDIEU, PIERRE. 2017. *Manet. A Symbolic Revolution*. Translated by PETER COLLIER and MARGARET RIGAUD-DRAYTON. Cambridge: Polity Press.

DE BIASI, PIERRE-MARC, and RÉJEAN LEGAULT, eds. 2000. "Architecture." *Genesis* (*Manuscrits-Recherche-Invention*), no. 14.

DERRIDA, JACQUES. 1982. *Margins of Philosophy*. Translated by ALAN BASS. Brighton: Harvester.

FERRER, DANIEL. 2011. *Logiques du brouillon: modèles pour une critique génétique*. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

———. 2023. *Genetic Joyce: Manuscripts and the Dynamics of Creation*. Gainesville, Fl.: University Press of Florida.

———. 2025. *Genetic Criticism and its Logics*. Translated by RACHEL BOWLBY. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.