Arrangement of the Dropped Initials and its Connections with the Punctuation in Manuscript and Printed Versions of the Roman de Perceforest: about Different Interpretations of the Text

Arrangement of the Dropped Initials and its Connections with the Punctuation in Manuscript and Printed Versions of the Roman de Perceforest: about Different Interpretations of the Text

大號字母在中世紀手稿中慣用於書卷及章節段落之首位，且常附有一些裝飾圖案。其主要功能為區分文章之段落，在其他標點符號功能未統一化時，是唯一廣為手抄員運用於組織架構文章的工具之一。在印刷術發明之初，出版商為了因應讀者的閱讀習慣，仍保留了古法文手稿的拼版方式。本文藉由法國國家圖書館保存下來的貝瑟彿黑小說其中的二個十五世紀的手稿及一個十六世紀的印刷版做一個大號字母位置及章節段落異同處之比較，試圖找尋遺失原文的原始架構及不同版本對同一文章的不同詮譯。

In the Middle Ages, texts were characterized by a compact succession of letters without spacing and few punctuation marks. Before the codification of the punctuation, dropped initials were generally used by the manual copyists for indicating visually the beginning of books, chapters or paragraphs. They were distinguished by larger format and came with adornments. Their main functions consist in dividing up into significant unities. In fact, after the invention of the typography, humanist editors continued to use dropped initials for fear of changing drastically the habit of reading. Some of philologists, when they present the medieval texts, cut the texts arbitrarily without respecting their original structure because of the comfort reading, but these dropped initials contain essential indications of the reading and possible interpretations of the texts at the time of copyists. Based on two manuscripts of the 15th century and an edition of the sixteenth century, our study aims to make a comparative analysis of the arrangement of the dropped initials and its connections with the punctuation in order to bring out different possibilities of the reading of the same text.