Texts, Editors, and Readers: Methods and Problems in Latin Textual Criticism (Roman Literature and its Contexts)

Synopsis

This book re-examines the most traditional area of classical scholarship, offering critical assessments of the current state of the field, its methods and controversies, and its prospects for the future in a digital environment. Each stage of the editorial process is examined, from gathering and evaluating manuscript evidence to constructing the text and critical apparatus, with particular attention given to areas of dispute, such as the role of conjecture. The importance of subjective factors at every point is highlighted. An Appendix offers practical guidance in reading a critical apparatus. The discussion is framed in a way that is accessible to non-specialists, with all Latin texts translated. The book will be useful both to classicists who are not textual critics and to non-classicists interested in issues of editing. Machine generated contents note: 1. Textual criticism in a post-heroic age -- 2. rhetoric of textual criticism/textual criticism as rhetoric -- 3. Establishing the text 1: recension -- 4. Establishing the text 2: conjecture -- 5. Establishing the text 3: interpolation, collaboration, and intertextuality -- 6. Textual criticism and literary criticism: the case of Propertius -- 7. Presenting the text: the critical edition and its discontents -- 8. future: problems and prospects. Richard Tarrant. Includes bibliographical references and index.