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Research in: Classics

Editions of Texts

EDITIONS OF TEXTS

UNDERSTANDING EDITIONS

Have you ever wondered why a library might have so many different translations of the same ancient text? 

None of the texts we examine as classicists originate in English (and we don't have original copies of most of them). So we rely on editors and translators to compile the versions of the texts that we read today. If you've ever studied a language, ancient or otherwise, you know that there's often more than one way to translate a word or phrase into English! Each edition of a text represents a particular scholar's idea of the best way to convey the text's original meaning into English. 

Textual Criticism

Textual criticism is one word for a kind of scholarship that involves tracing the history of a particular version of a text. For example, say you are a scholar working with the Venetus A, one of the most famous copies of Homer's Iliad. Records tell us that a scribe created the Venetus A sometime in the 900s AD, but most scholars think the story we know as the Iliad was created in the 800s BC -- so that's not the original copy! 

One way to study the Iliad, then, is to try to figure out -- based on notes on the copy, based on the way the language is used, based on other copies we have of pieces of the Iliad -- when different parts of this version of the Iliad were actually written, and which ones we think might be original. Think of it like a textual multiverse! 

Critical Editions

In literary studies we often use what are called critical editions --a version of a text like the Iliad or Aeneid that is based on a carefully-chosen combination of sources. Usually, these editions are accompanied by information designed to help us understand (1) which sources were used and (2) why the scholar chose the combination of sources they did -- a commentary, notes, or even a critical apparatus:


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Commentaries & Concordances

COMMENTARIES & CONCORDANCES

COMMENTARIES

What is a Commentary?

Commentaries are designed to help both students and scholars of the classics work more effectively with ancient texts.  

Commentaries can take many different forms. Some commentaries are written as footnotes, under or around an edition of an ancient work. Others can be found at the back of the book containing an ancient text, or in a completely separate volume. You can find commentaries which walk you through an ancient text line-by-line, and others which take more of a narrative approach to describing important themes, characters or other ideas in a text. There are even ancient forms of commentaries found in manuscripts, known as scholia

Commentaries may also be very different in their focus. A commentary designed for students might provide translations or explanations for important vocabulary. Commentaries might also address topics related to the text such as word choice, grammar, literary devices, or meter; historical details; themes and ideas; manuscript sources for the text; and/or questions and problems that previous scholars have had about a certain part of the work. The ultimate goal of any commentary, though, is to help the reader to better understand and to engage more fully with, the ancient text. 

Why Use a Commentary?

If you are taking a language course, often your required textbooks will include some kind of commentary. But beyond assigned readings, it is often valuable to consult one (or more!) commentaries for a text that you are trying to read closely. A commentary will help you better understand what you are reading and ask questions about it. It will highlight important parts of the text which you should particularly pay attention to or ask questions about.  Commentaries are particularly useful if you are trying to compare different versions of the same text (or different versions of the same story told in multiple texts), or if you are doing a word study where you are looking at the use of specific words. They can also be very helpful inspiration for reflection or research paper topics, or for other long-term projects! 

How Do I Find Commentaries? 

Most of the time, commentaries will be found with the texts they comment on. So, if you are looking for commentaries on the Odyssey, you should start by looking where the books on Homer are found. Check multiple editions of the text in question to see if they contain commentaries, or look for separate commentary volumes in the same areas. There are also some useful collections of commentaries on the web.

CONCORDANCES

What is a Concordance? 

Concordances are designed to help both students and scholars work more effectively with textual sources, particularly when it comes to understanding the use of language in those sources. The goal of a concordance is to index every appearance of a specific name or term in the book or set of books that it accompanies. There are concordances for many types of literary work, ranging from the Bible, to Homer, to the works of Shakespeare.

Concordances can take many different forms, and not all are constructed the same. For works in non-English languages, concordances can be in the source language, or in English or another translated language. When selecting a concordance to study a text originally written in a different language, and/or a text that has many different forms, it is critical to match the concordance to the version. For example, a concordance matched to the King James Version of the Book of Genesis, will not be helpful if you are primarily using the New Revised Standard Version of Genesis, because different editions may choose a different English equivalent for the same Hebrew word. 

Why Use a Concordance?

Concordances can be very helpful for research that involves close-reading of a text. Perhaps you want to know every time that Venus is mentioned across the works of Vergil, or every use of the word prophet in the Hebrew Bible. A concordance will collect that information for you. Because concordances are usually compiled by hand, they have an advantage over word searches in online tools (though those are also helpful) because they will more-easily catch different forms of the same word (e.g., Venus will be listed whether her name appears in the nominative, accusative, or dative form in the original Latin) while excluding words with similar beginnings that are not what you're looking for. 

How Do I Find Concordances? 

Concordances are usually located close to the texts they are matched to. So, a Vergil concordance will be located in the same section as versions of the Aeneid; Bible concordances will be located in the biblical studies section of the library. Note that not every text has a concordance created for it (and not all concordances are owned by Dinand -- although some older concordances will nonetheless be available in places like HathiTrust). 

Abbreviations

ABBREVIATIONS

DECIPHERING ABBREVIATIONS

Secondary sources like classical encyclopedias and dictionaries, as well as commentaries and other books, sometimes provide helpful references to ancient texts that you may want to follow. These could appear in the bibliography, OR they could be presented as part of the text (or both). For example, here is the Oxford Classical Dictionary entry for Cadmus (highlighting added to show references): 

You will need to decipher these abbreviations before you can determine which ancient text the encyclopedia is referencing. Fortunately, most reference books of this kind provide information about how they use abbreviations somewhere at the front of the book (note that if you are using a multi-volume series, this information may be at the front of each volume or may be limited to the first volume). 

If the list is standard enough, you may be able to find it in other sources. For example, Oxford makes their abbreviation list available online:

The book you are using might also spell out abbreviations, if not in a preface, than in a section under References or Further Reading (pay attention to whether they mention this!). 

If you cannot find the meaning of the abbreviation, don't be afraid to ask your professor, or Google it! When you search, add in a keyword that will help specify what topic you're working on. For example, the Companion to Assyria references the abbreviation RIMA; if you google RIMA, you will get a lot of false positives, including the Rhode Island Manufacturer's Association (not helpful!). But if you Google RIMA Assyria , the first result will tell you that RIMA, in this context, stands for the series Royal Inscriptions of Mesopotamia: Assyrian Periods


Other Terms

Some texts use additional terminology in Latin or Greek that may not be defined in the abbreviation list. You can look these up in a Latin or Greek dictionary, in the Perseus Digital Library, or sometimes even in a reputable English dictionary like the Oxford English Dictionary. 

For example, the bibliography for the Oxford Classical Dictionary's article on Cadmus uses the term passim with several citations. 

Passim is Latin for "scattered," and is used to indicate that the article has used information from many different parts of the source being cited (instead of identifying specific pages or sections). This is not, of course, a technique that you want to use on your own assignments!


Specific Citations 

Citations to specific passages and sections, like examples at the start of this box (ex - Od. 5.333), may use different numbering systems depending on the kind of texts you are looking at (i.e., Greco-Roman vs. Hebrew vs. Sumerian). Check the text sections for your specific type of literature on this guide to learn how texts are organized in that particular sub-field. 

Manuscripts & Inscriptions

MANUSCRIPTS & INSCRIPTIONS

PALEOGRAPHY 

Paleography is, essentially, the study of handwriting -- specifically, of texts written on papyrus, wax, parchment, or paper. When studying the ancient world, paleographic resources are particularly helpful for dealing with manuscripts. The editions/copies on which critical editions are based, usually exist as manuscripts. Reading the original manuscripts can also provide context and insight that are not found in modern editions of the text. 

The hardest part of working with a manuscript, other than getting access, is often reading the writing! This page collects resources to help you accomplish this task. 

EPIGRAPHY

Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions -- texts written on material surfaces. Inscriptions can include literature, but also include graffiti, proclamations, funerary texts and other types of sources that exist only as inscriptions. 

This page collects resources to help you work with inscriptions in your study of the ancient world.