Abstract
Stemmatology studies aspects of textual criticism that use genealogical methods to analyse a set of copies of a text whose autograph has been lost. This handbook is the first to cover the entire field, encompassing both theoretical and practical aspects of traditional as well as modern digital methods and their history. As an art ( ars), stemmatology’s main goal is editing and thus presenting to the reader a historical text in the most satisfactory way. As a more abstract discipline ( scientia), it is interested in the general principles of how texts change in the process of being copied. Thirty eight experts from all of the fields involved have joined forces to write this handbook, whose eight chapters cover material aspects of text traditions, the genesis and methods of traditional Lachmannian textual criticism and the objections raised against it, as well as modern digital methods used in the field. The two concluding chapters take a closer look at how this approach towards texts and textual criticism has developed in some disciplines of textual scholarship and compare methods used in other fields that deal with descent with modification. The handbook thus serves as an introduction to this interdisciplinary field. – First systematic coverage of stemmatology as a field within textual criticism. – Written by 38 experts in fields from various philologies to biology and information theory. – Illustrations and many practical examples from a wide range of disciplines are provided to render the content more accessible.
Highlights
In studying handwritten textual traditions and editing texts, the term bears an ominous tone: “contamination” is the term for the most serious and most frequent phenomenon endangering the reconstruction of the original reading and the understanding of the textual transmission and dissemination
In the world of texts and their transmission, contamination is understood as the copying of readings from more than one exemplar, resulting in complex and often hard-to-detect relationships between textual witnesses within the transmission of a text
It is hard for the recensio of textual criticism to reveal if an agreement in error is the result of common descent or of mixture between lines of descent
Summary
“Contamination” sounds threatening in most fields of life. Even in textual criticism, in studying handwritten textual traditions and editing texts, the term bears an ominous tone: “contamination” is the term for the most serious and most frequent phenomenon endangering the reconstruction of the original reading and the understanding of the textual transmission and dissemination.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.