Some partly autobiographical contributions to the discussion.
I am a classical philologist by training. Experience with Neo-Latin texts
(where sometimes you have access to author's own manuscripts) has first
shown me that there are other things a critical edition can do *besides*
reconstructing the author's version. Later, learning about digital
scholarly editions --- the Versioning Machine from Maryland Institute for
Technology in the Humanities was important here --- I was quite shocked to
see that a text does not have to have a "main" version, that several
versions can now exist in parallel. In classical philology, this is
almost sacrilege; the dividing line between "worthier" and "less worthy"
manuscripts begins to blur.
I think this sacrilege is healthy; it opens a new window in classical
philology.
For some classical authors we have come as far, in constituting their
texts, as we will ever be able; new editions will bring only minor changes
(accidentaly, changes that would be easier to incorporate in a digital
edition than in a printed one). Indirectly, the digital classical corpora
--- PHI, TLG, Teubner's, even the Perseus Project as it is now --- support
this thesis, presenting the modern version of textus receptus, without any
variants (besides cruces and deletions).
On the other hand, this process of purifying the classical texts took more
than 500 years; some important insights, and considerable philological
acumen was engaged there.
Now we have the means to make this process and this acumen in itself an
object of study, using it at the same time --- turning it around --- to
teach others. In other words, I think a digital scholarly edition --- one
where a reader would be able, and stimulated, to take a text all the way
from a medieval manuscript to a modern critical edition, and to find out
why one variant, or emendation, was preferred to another (and when, and
with what consequences) --- such an edition would be a valuable teaching
tool.
Finally, reading some (American, mainly from the journal Arion) articles
dealing with Classics in the 1960's, I had the impression that the study
of classics, at least partly, renounced philology --- and that it did not
happen yesterday. A great part of research and teaching concerned with
Classics today could have been done, it seems, equally well on
*translations* of the sources. But ancient texts have also such levels
that can be reached only in original language. The problem is not only how
to reach them --- the problem is also how to *teach* them.
Neven
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