Just a few centuries ago we knew more about an important person because of the letters they wrote with their own hand with their parents, friends and others. Now that we use the e-mail and other messages that we don't have access, how do we are going to know about how a person was? For example, Leonardo da Vinci would be upset if he knew that we read his letters and that we have an idea of his mother relationship, but if Leonardo would use e-mail, how do we know how he felt?
Dear Mario,
Your question is, how do we delve into the intimacy of major figures without access to archives of correspondence or manuscripts? I have works on both kinds of creators-- thinkers with well-organized archives (Unamuno, Falla, Lorca) and thinkers who used typewriters and email (Francisco Ayala). In the case of Ayala, I had to prepare two critical editions for Cátedra (Madrid) of his novels, "Muertes de perro" and "El fondo del vaso." There were no existing manuscripts, so I had to compare and contrast existing editions, and in case of discrepancies I emailed the author.
There was a disadvantage to having the author respond. In "Muertes de perro" I saw a clear influence of Camilo José Cela´s novel "La familia de Pascual Duarte." However, by e-mail Francisco Ayala wrote me that that influence was impossible, because in 1958 when he wrote "Muertes de perro" he had not read "Pascual Duarte" (1942). Obviously, while he was still alive-- he is no longer--, I could not mention the Cela connection in my editions. But do your math: 16 years is a long time and Cela was and is very well-known.
If you ever wanted to edit your own version of "Muertes de perro," I would let you quote the present RG response and you could take it from there.
Dear Nelson
First, thank you for write up my question and the idea was correct. Maybe we won't know perfectly well the mind of an important historical person because we are humans, and humans always change with the years and the influence of the context and society, but we can get near of a conclusion. Maybe the way we make historical investigations will change, the challenge would be: which will be the method?
I return with Da Vinci's manuscript, that could give us more idea of what he tried to investigate than if he would made a final Photoshop or Illustrator design.
Dear Mario,
Interpreting documents of any kind poses problems of hermeneutics. Those documents can be manuscripts, photographs, and even emails. That said, the character of the document does not make the interpretation more or less correct (provided the document is legible). A rare manuscript may give us less information than a common email! So in every case your method is hermeneutics, the science of the interpretation of texts. The method will vary with the instruments at your disposal. For example. Manuel de Falla had a handwriting that was very difficult to read. I had to decipher some rare manuscripts of his on the famous French composer Maurice Ravel. If I were unable to zoom in on the manuscripts with my computer to magnify the text ten times, I would still ignore what Falla had written.
I think maybe that's not the real problem. Nowadays we can give further information from the web, useful information about the writings, acts and some personal data the author agrees to publish. In the other hand, asking directly could not be a good idea, as it is said before. Instead, as investigation in the present, you can ask some other people close to the person/group you are trying to study, so maybe collecting all that information can give you an idea of the hidden personality of that artist/collective.
Gregorio, the law speaks of the problematic quality of hearsay evidence: what others say about a person has less probative value than information gleaned, say, from direct contact with the person. The same applies to research. Here is an example: there exists a moving 1937 essay of Spanish composer Manuel de Falla on French composer Maurice Ravel. Now, the chapel conductor of the cathedral of Granada told musicologist Mariano Pérez Gutiérrez that the essay had in fact been authored by one of Falla´s friends, since Falla himself was ill. Pérez Gutiérrez accepted the hearsay evidence in his book "La estética musical de Ravel." However, I subsequently proved that the hearsay was wrong by discovering the existence, in Falla´s archives, of two handwritten manuscripts of the essay on Ravel. This beautiful essay had in fact emerged from Falla´s own pen.
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