2006/6/9, Neven Jovanović &lt;<a href="mailto:[log in to unmask]"><a href="/cgi-bin/wa-jisc.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind0606%26L%3DDIGITALCLASSICIST%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D105411%26B%3D------%253D_Part_1802_7336606.1149860649505%26T%3Dtext%252Fhtml%3B%2520charset%3DUTF-8%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a></a>&gt;:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Being so compressed, the apparatus is an elitist device, aimed at the<br>illuminati who will, thanks to their superior philological knowledge,<br>understand the reason one reading is selected over another.&nbsp;&nbsp;Uncompressing<br>
the apparatus could make it more accessible to those less enlightened, or<br>to those on their way to such enlightenment.</blockquote><div><br>As much as I like the terminology (&quot;illuminati), I have to slightly disagree. A critical apparatus is documenting the decision-making of the editor, precisely because he is supposed to make a decision on how the text must have looked like when written and not present us with more then one texts; others need to be able to test his decision and make up their own minds. Matters of form (abbreviated style, use of Latin etc.) are due to&nbsp; practical matters and to some extent tradition, but are not nonnegotiable by many editors. 
<br><br>There are different kinds of readers with different needs. Most of them are interested in the text as such and never look at the apparatus. Others, interested in the history of a language might find in the apparatus valuable material, many a parallel construction, the lexicographer new words.&nbsp; In the end, it is the apparatus that makes an edition &quot;critical&quot; and because of this it can be omitted in different kinds of editions. I fully accept Juan's point about adapting a critical edition to the digital medium, I am much more interested though in the notion of a &quot;fixed&quot; text.
<br><br>Establishing a sound methodology for critical editions (away from the practice of the Renaissance and later centuries of editing single manuscript versions) transformed (classical) philology and provided the basis for a massive production of literature that brought the classical world closer to us. Now for once, digital editions can challenge these assumptions and tell a different story; but as Gabriel pointed out, most people don't see the need for &quot;new&quot; editions, thus are not thinking like Simon did in his post, 
e.g. questioning what exactly they are reading, while reading a &quot;classical&quot; text. If there is something than CAN change this attitude, this would be high quality digital editions of classical texts.<br><br></div>
All the best,<br>Notis<br></div><br>-- <br>University of Cambridge<br>Grammar of Medieval Greek project