Textual Criticism and Methods of Editing Latin, Greek and Oriental Texts [ LGLOR2174 ]

Inscription on iCampus obligatory. Study material is available on this server. It also provides a platform for work in progress and communication within the course.

This course is intended for students who have followed at least two years of Greek, Latin Arab, Armenian, Coptic, or Syriac at a bachelor level.

This course consists of the analytical study of the historical research of Greek Latin and/or Oriental (Arab, Syriac, Coptic etc.) text according to the interests of the students and the availability of expertise amongst the teachers.

The majority of the course consists of an initiation into the methods of edition of texts.

The course will consist of a theoretical part on the edition of ancient and medieval texts (essentially Greek and Latin) as transmitted by manuscripts: Why edit texts?, What is a critical edition?,  a brief history of Philology, development of the stemmatic method (after Lachmann), twentieth century controversies concerning the 'Lachmann' approach (Bédier's quarrel, neo-Lachmannism, 'new philology' etc.). The student will need to familiarise himself with a certain number of concepts and be capable of using a bibliography.

Following this, on the basis of  examples drawn essentially from Greek, Latin and Arab literatures, both ancient and medieval, the methods used for the production of a critical edition will be explained and demonstrated  in the two senses, that is from the critical edition and from the manuscripts.

Within the framework of a practical exercise, each student will prepare either a methodical evaluation of a recent study of a recent study in the domain in question or a collation and a critical provisional edition of a small text.

At the end of this course, the student will be capable of :

- reading, analysing and using an edition (introduction, critical apparatus) ;
- evaluatinf different types of edition (and their relevance in relation to the type of text, or the textual tradition);
- understanding the process of establishing a genealogy of manuscripts (stemma);
- understanding the construction of a critical text (and its critical apparatus);
- collating various major manuscripts of a given text and the preparation of a provisional text;
- uusing a specialised program (Classical Text Editor);
- using the bibliographical tools and other tools;
- an oral and written presentation of the results of an exercise in collation and of a critical text;
- active participation in a discussion of a technical subject relating the history of a specific text.

The evaluation is partly continuous (based on work done during the course) (40%), but also on the basis of a specific project whose exact subject will be agreed with the professor, but which must demonstrate that the specific competences exposed in ethe course have been acquired.

The course is intended to be as interactive as possible, because it is the critical approach, and technical and methodology competences which must be developed, and not theoretical knowledge. The course will be presented to a certain extent "à la carte" according to the wishes of the students and the subjects of their end-of-course work. This activity is organised according to the concept of "blended learning" combining presentation of lessons and "distance learning" by means of the iCampus platform.

This course, of an advanced level, is oriented towards the crical editions of Arab, Greek, Latin and Oriental texts, their evaluation, as well as studies carried out on the histories of such texts.

The first part of the course (10 hours) consists of  the theoretical aspects and is common for all the students. Even in this theoretical part, an active participation on the part of all students is required: students will have to read a certain number of texts dealing with the methodology (reading list) which will the be discussed in class.

The examples studied during the course will be taken from the widest possible range of textual and edition tradition. Ranging from a tradition with only one example to an 'over-abundant' one, of various literary 'genres' with indirect more or less complicated traditions.

The practical exercises (20 hours) are of several types: analysis and discussion of  critical apparatus, and of introductions or philological studies, collation of manuscript evidence and the preparation of a "stemma codicum", preparation of an edition and the layout preparation of a critical text together with the critical apparatus using a specialized program.

Students will be required to present and discuss in class the results of their researches, as well as to edit them in a small work of synthesis.

The course includes a DL aspect, with obligatory inscription on iCampus.

Printed texts, photocopies and documents available in numeric format.

The course language is French, but other languages such as English German may be used occasionally according to the origin of a visiting teacher.

There are other courses which give instruction in the methods of textual edition in other Oriental languages: LTHEO2452 (biblical texts), LGLOR2912 (Near Eastern texts) and several courses at Masters level in Oriental languages.