Hi Paolo,

I read your article with interest. Here are some questions:

- Do you have any stats for the number of witnesses for well known classical texts? This might put the digital scholarly editions question into perspective.

- If we're in the arena of semi-controversial thoughts, here's one for you. Does anyone actually consult the critical apparatus in a standard text? Have you come across particularly striking examples of variant readings in classical texts?

- If I understand your document correctly, you say that one of the reasons for the lack of interest in the textual tradition is because it is (relatively speaking) far from the source. So, the variant readings give more of an insight into the contemporary cultural context rather than the intentions of the original author.

Henry. 

On 2 April 2012 13:37, Paolo Monella <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear All,

As I am a strong supporter of digital scholarly editions, I wrote a little provocation on the question "Why are there no digital scholarly editions of 'classical' texts?" in
http://www.unipa.it/paolo.monella/lincei/why.html
(short link: http://goo.gl/GQ2JC)

Here is an abstract of what I wrote (*paragraph title* / summary):

* Starting point: we have a problem. Yes, we do *
Where I argue that there are no digital scholarly edition of a classical text with a multi-testimonial tradition (and I explain what I mean by that).

* Point 1: We don't have classical digital scholarly editions because classicists just don't feel they need them *
The title says it all.

* Point 2: They don't feel so because of the "canonisation" of the classical corpus *
Where I argue that classical texts are quite well preserved after all (due to "canonisation", in a specific sense that I explain), and that classicists don't feel they need digital scholarly editions because they consider the textual variance not too meaningful and they are more focussed on the "Text" than on "documents".

* Point 3. The missing link: is there also a modelling flaw? *
Where I notice that we have digital editions of "Texts" and digital editions of "documents", but no editions that link them (digital scholarly editions), and suspect that may be a flaw in our modelling of textual primary sources.

All comments and reactions are most welcome.

Best,
Paolo
http://www.unipa.it/paolo.monella/lincei
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