Digital Critical Editions of Homer

Chiara Salvagni (KCL)

Institute of Classical Studies Digital Seminar 2012

Friday June 1st at 16:30, in Room G37, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU

In my thesis, I intend to discuss how a digital edition can fulfil the possibilities of the digital medium, starting with an analysis of the current digital editions of the works of Homer, the Chicago Homer and the Homer Multitext. The case study will be the first book of the Odyssey of Homer. One of the aims of this work will be to discuss what answers a digital edition can give to the questions which arise during the various stages of a critical edition of a classic work. The first phase of my research was a literature review of the state of the arts on digital scholarly editions, from which I tried to figure out what would be the best approach to use for the Homeric text. What I would like to discuss here are the initial results of my analysis of the material I will use in my project, connected with the initial ideas of a prototype. The purpose of my analysis is to understand how a printed edition of the scholia works and how its qualities and characteristics can be described in a different but at the same time engaging manner in a digital edition. Particularly, the analysis will focus on how the scholia can be encoded in order to be part of a digital edition of the first book of the Odyssey, with special concern for their critical apparatus.

The theoretical approaches I have been studying will be taken into account, especially the possibility of using the Open Source Critical Edition methodological framework for my work on the Odyssey. The specific characteristic of the Homeric text, its oral origin and the Homeric question on the existence or non existence of Homer, will also be considered as representative of a work for which we cannot reconstruct an original text, even if this is theoretically considered possible for other ancient works.

ALL WELCOME

The seminar will be followed by wine and refreshments.

Audio recording of seminar (MP3)

Presentation (PDF)