Digital Criticism: Editorial Standards for the Homer Multitext
The so-called Homeric Question (in reality, several related questions) that has
animated and in various ways divided modern scholarship on the
Iliad and
Odyssey since the 18th century
centers on the origins and transmission of the epics. How were they composed and by
whom? How were they recorded in writing, and how were they then transmitted to the
witnesses that have survived until today? How is it possible that such complex poetry
stands at the very beginning of Western literature, even before writing as a
technology was well developed? Editorial practice for critical editions of the epics
will necessarily be affected by how each editor approaches and answers these
questions [
Nagy 2000].
[1] Yet a critical edition in the print
medium will give a particular, and we would argue misleading, impression about the
answers to these questions. A standard print edition will present a main text, and
then record alternative readings in an apparatus (generally printed at the bottom of
the page in smaller-sized font), giving the impression that there is
the
text — and then there is everything else. Compounding this problem and further
obscuring the situation for nonspecialists, the apparatus as developed and practiced
in classical textual criticism uses conventions and abbreviations that can only be
deciphered by those who have received special training in these
practices.
[2] In effect, the standard critical edition seems to offer only one answer
to these questions: that the Homeric epics are just like any other ancient text in
their composition and transmission.
A digital medium provides an opportunity to construct a truly different type of
critical edition of the Homeric epics, one that better reflects the circumstances of
its composition and transmission. The
Homer Multitext of the
Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS) in Washington, D.C., seeks to use the advantages of
digital editions to give a more accurate visual representation of the textual
tradition of Homeric epic than the current use of the printed page does. Most
significantly, our digital design is also intended to reveal more readily the oral
performance tradition in which the epics were composed, a tradition in which
variation from performance to performance was natural and expected. The Homeric epics
were composed again and again in performance: the digital medium, which can more
readily handle multiple texts, is therefore eminently suitable for a critical edition
of Homeric poetry — indeed, the fullest realization of a critical edition of Homer
may require a digital medium.
[3] To achieve our goals, the digital Multitext must be
fundamentally different from these print editions in conception, structure, and
interface.
[4] In this article we would like to explain in more depth than we have
elsewhere how the oral, traditional poetry of these epics and their textual history
call for a different editorial practice from what has previously been done and
therefore also for a new means of representation. We will also demonstrate how the
Homer Multitext shares features with but also has different needs and goals from
other digital editions of literary works that were composed in writing. These
comparisons will help to highlight our editorial approach to the variations attested
in the textual record. We will conclude by stating our commitment to three
foundational principles of the Multitext project that are essential to this digital
criticism.
Textual Criticism of an Oral Poem in a Digital Medium
When dealing with ancient texts, we never have access to the author’s own manuscript;
moreover, our witnesses are copies many iterations and many centuries removed from
any such “original.” The practice of textual criticism, in this case as applied
to classical Greek texts, has the goal of recovering the original composition of the
author [
Reynolds and Wilson 1991]. To create a critical edition, a modern editor
assembles a text by collating the various written witnesses to an ancient Greek text,
understanding their relationship with each other, knowing the kinds and likelihoods
of mistakes that can occur when texts are copied by hand, and, in the case of poetry,
applying the rules and exceptions of the meter as well as grammar. The final
published work will then represent what she or he thinks are the author’s own words
(or as close to this as possible). An editor may follow one manuscript almost
exclusively, or pick and choose between different manuscripts to compile what seems
truest to the original. The editor also places in the apparatus criticus what s/he
judges to be significant variants recorded in the witnesses. The reader must rely on
the editor for the completeness of the apparatus in reporting variants. For a text
that was composed and originally published in writing, this goal of recovering the
original text and these practices for achieving it have been valuable and productive,
even if the author’s original composition may never be fully achieved because of the
state of the evidence.
A helpful comparison can be made to the critical editions of Shakespeare’s plays
known as the “Variorum” editions, which are sponsored by and overseen by the
Modern Language Association (
http://www.mla.org/variorum_handbook). Although the textual tradition of
Shakespeare is far less old than that of Archaic and Classical Greek texts, editors
for each play in much the same way painstakingly compare and evaluate readings from
different sources, make choices as to which is most likely to be correct, and justify
their decisions. The Greek New Testament is another group of texts for which a
rigorous system of evaluation of the various readings and their witnesses has
developed (see, e.g., [
Aland 2005]). Some digital projects, such as the
Cervantes Project digital library, while capturing variation in the textual tradition
in an Electronic Variorum Edition, do so for the stated goal of producing “a more correct edition closer to
Cervantes’ original manuscript”
[
Monroy et. al. 2002]. Similarly, Stringer argues that a variorum edition of John Donne’s poetry has
allowed the restoration of a particular line “to its original form”
[
Stringer 1999, 91]. For an edition of Don Quixote de la Mancha or poems of Donne, this goal is
appropriate to the fundamental notion of an original manuscript of an individual
author and a text composed in writing.
Because the Iliad and Odyssey were not composed in writing, however, this editorial system
cannot be applied in the same way. These epics come from a long oral tradition in
which they were created, performed, and re-performed, all without the technology of
writing. In the earliest phases of this tradition, the Iliad and Odyssey would never have been
performed in the same way twice. In other words, in such a tradition in which the
composition is occurring in the course of performance, there is no one “author’s
original composition” to try to recover, for there is not only no one
composition, but also no one author. This fundamental difference in the composition
and history of this poetry, then, means that we must adjust our assumptions in our
understanding of the variations in the written record. What does it mean when we see
variations, which still fit the meter and language of the poetry, in the witnesses to
the texts? Instead of “mistakes” to be corrected or choices that must be weighed
and evaluated, as an editor would do in the case of a text composed in writing, we
assert that these variations are testaments to the system of language that underlies
the composition-in-performance of the oral tradition. Textual criticism as practiced
is predicated on selection and “correction” as it creates the fiction of a
singular text. The digital criticism we are proposing for the Homer Multitext
maintains the integrity of each witness to allow for continual and dynamic
comparison, better reflecting the multiplicity of the textual record and of the oral
tradition in which these epics were created.
The Iliad and Odyssey as
Oral Poetry
We have learned from the comparative fieldwork of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who
studied and recorded a living oral tradition during the 1930s and again in the 1950s
in what was then Yugoslavia, that the Homeric epics were composed in performance
during a long oral tradition that preceded any written version ([
Parry 1971], [
Lord 2000], [
Lord 1991], and
[
Lord 1995]; see also [
Nagy 1996a] and [
Nagy 2002]). In this tradition, the singer did not memorize a static
text prior to performance, but would compose the song as he sang it. How is that
possible, especially for a song such as the
Iliad? As
Parry and Lord were able to illustrate comparatively by way of the South Slavic
tradition, the composition depends on a traditional system that can best be
understood as a specialized language with its own specialized grammar and vocabulary.
We refer to this specialized language as “formulaic,” using Parry’s terminology.
This traditional language is most familiar to us in name-epithet combinations (e.g.,
“swift-footed Achilles”), but as scholarship over the past 75 years has
shown, the whole epic is composed using this formulaic system. A singer trained in
this system of language and in the traditional stories, as Parry and Lord themselves
observed in action, can then rapidly compose while performing [
Lord 2000].
One of the most important revelations of the fieldwork of Parry and Lord is that
every time the song is performed in an oral composition-in-performance tradition, it
is composed anew. The singers themselves do not strive to innovate, but they
nevertheless compose a new song each time [
Dué 2002, 83–89]. The
mood of the audience or occasion of performance are just two factors that can
influence the length of a song or a singer’s choices between competing, but still
traditional, elements of plot. The training of the singer or the pressures of
performance may influence which traditional formulas he employs in any particular
line in performance. The term “variant,” as employed by textual critics when
evaluating witnesses to a text, is not appropriate for such a compositional
process.
[5] Lord explained the difference this way: “the word
multiform is more
accurate than
variant, because it does not give preference or
precedence to any one word or set of words to express an idea; instead it
acknowledges that the idea may exist in several forms”
[
Lord 1995, 23]. Our textual criticism of Homeric epic, then, needs to distinguish what may
genuinely be copying mistakes and what are performance multiforms: that is, what
variations we see are very likely to be part of the system and the tradition in which
these epics were composed [
Dué 2001a].
Once we begin to think about the variations as parts of the system rather than as
mistakes or corruptions, textual criticism of the Homeric texts can then address
fresh questions. Some of the variations we see in the written record, for example,
reveal the flexibility of this system. Where different written versions record
different words, but each phrase or line is metrically and contextually sound, we
must not necessarily consider one “correct” or “Homer” and the other a
“mistake” or an “interpolation.” Rather, each could represent a
different performance possibility, a choice that the singer could make, and would be
making rapidly without reference to a set text (in any sense of that word).
Variation in the Homeric Corpus: Two Examples
Let’s look at two brief examples of such multiforms and the questions they can raise
for interpretation as well as what they add to our understanding of this system.
These examples are intended to show why making the editorial choices that classical
textual criticism demands can be disruptive for our understanding of the oral,
traditional nature of this poetry, but they are not meant to be exempla
in the sense of representing the whole range of multiforms. We will discuss the types
and sources of variation further below.
In 3, Priam asks Helen about a man on the battlefield, whom Helen identifies as
Odysseus. Antenor, a Trojan, then reminisces about an earlier meeting he had with
Odysseus and Menelaos when they came to negotiate for Helen’s return (
Iliad 3.203–224). This whole episode is intriguing in terms
of the storytelling, but we will limit our discussion here to just one recorded
difference in one line of what Antenor says. He first compares the two Achaeans in
terms of looks, and then on line 212 begins to compare the impression each made as a
public speaker:
ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μύθους καὶ μήδεα πᾶσιν ὕφαινον/ἔφαινον
But when they began to weave/bring to light words and
schemes among all…
Many of the manuscripts have ὕφαινον (“weave”), but other witnesses
report ἔφαινον (“bring to light”), which some modern editors, such as Ludwich,
have preferred. In the usual criticism of a text composed in writing, as described
above, this kind of variation would present the editor with a choice. There is only
one letter (and breathing mark) different between the two, so a text-based assumption
would be that one is original and one is a mistake made by a scribe at some point in
the transmission. Are Odysseus and Menelaos weaving their words and schemes, or are
they revealing them? Using the methods we outlined above, a textual critic would
examine the evidence of the manuscripts to determine in which manuscripts and how
often each verb shows up and consider which one is most likely to be confused for the
other by a copyist. She or he would then make a decision about which one s/he thinks
the author originally wrote and which one was the mistake.
But when we think about these verbs as part of the traditional system of
composition-in-performance, we can see that either verb is possible, and that either
could be used in a performance. The two epics together provide our only
“database,” as it were, for seeing how the system of language works. In our
Odyssey ἔφαινον is used in this final position in the
line (Odyssey 4.12 and 19.25), but so is ὕφαινον
(Odyssey 4.678 and 9.422). Thus, either is possible metrically in this position and
is in fact used there within the compositional system. Considering the metrical
position of the word in addition to its overall use helps to illustrate that a singer
would be able to use it in this line in performance. Either is also
equally possible in the context and sense of the line: Odysseus and Menelaos could be
revealing their plans by telling the Trojans what they hope to achieve in meeting
with them, or they could be speaking in a particular way for which the metaphor of
weaving is used in this traditional language. The two line-final uses of ὕφαινον in
the Odyssey are particularly telling in this respect: in
both of those cases the object of the verb is μῆτιν “craft, scheme.” (And this
verb is also used with μῆτις in other metrical positions, such as at Iliad 8.324 or 9.93.) Thus we can see that the verb is often
used in this metaphorical sense, and those instances can help us to better understand
it at Iliad 3.212. If they are weaving their μήδεα, they
are plotting, whereas if they are revealing their μήδεα, they are telling the Trojans
their plans. According to the system of traditional language, either is possible, and
thus the singer who is composing in performance may use either characterization. The
question to be pursued here is not which is right and which is wrong, but how to
understand the coloring that each multiform gives to Antenor’s recollection. Thus we
want readers to be able to easily be aware of both possibilities that have been
transmitted and be able to see clearly which witnesses record them without taking the
words out of their context within the source, as an apparatus does.
Another example of multiformity, but one which does not involve the possibility of a
spelling or copying mistake, is present in the written record of Iliad 5.53. In this battle scene, Menelaos kills Skamandrios, the son of
Strophios, whom, we hear, Artemis herself had taught to hunt (Iliad 5.49–52). One version of 5.53 picks up on this association when it
says: “ἀλλ᾽ οὔ οἱ τότε γε χραῖσμ᾽ Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα,
but Artemis who pours down arrows was no help to him
then.” This is a reading known to Aristarchus (for more on whom,
see below), and is recorded both in manuscripts and in papyrus fragments.
Aristarchus’ predecessor as Librarian of Alexandria, Zenodotus, however, recorded a
version of this line that reads “ἀλλ᾽ οὔ οἱ τότε γε
χραῖσμεν θανάτοιο πέλωρα, but portents of death were no help to
him then.” The name-epithet combination of Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα shows
up several more times in our Iliad and Odyssey, mostly in this line-end position (e.g., Iliad 5.447, 6.428, 20.39, 24.606; Odyssey 11.172 and 15.478). We do not have the exact phrase θανάτοιο
πέλωρα elsewhere in our Iliad and Odyssey, but each word does show up in these particular metrical
positions in other verses (πέλωρα at Odyssey 10.219;
θανάτοιο eleven times in our Iliad and four times in our
Odyssey at that position), indicating that the two
words could fit within a line together in those positions. Contextually, as well, the
expression works, if perhaps a bit more mysteriously. Instead of asking how such a
“mistake” or “interpolation” could have crept into the written record
(or just ignoring it altogether, as is more likely), we can instead consider how
Zenodotus might have known about that multiform and inquire into his editorial
practices for recording these lesser known (to us) versions. Such questions will
ultimately be far more enlightening about the textual tradition of the poems as well
as the system that makes composition in performance possible.
Representing Multiformity
Yet it is difficult to indicate the parity of these multiforms in a standard critical
edition on the printed page. As we noted in our introduction, one version must be
chosen for the text on the upper portion of the page, and the other recorded
variations must be placed in an apparatus below, often in smaller text, a placement
that necessarily gives the impression that these variations are incorrect or at least
less important. Within a digital medium, however, the Homer Multitext will be able to
show where such variations occur, indicate clearly which witnesses record them, and
allow users to see them in an arrangement that more intuitively distinguishes them as
performance multiforms. Thus a digital criticism — one that can more readily present
parallel texts — enables a more comprehensive understanding of these epics.
An approach to editing Homer that embraces the multiformity of both the performative
and textual phases of the tradition — that is to say, a multitextual approach — can
convey the complexity of the transmission of Homeric epic in a way that is simply
impossible on the printed page. The variations that the textual critic of Homer
encounters come from many different kinds of sources and many time periods. In his
edition of the
Iliad Allen included 188 manuscripts,
dating from the 10th century CE on, and the relationship between manuscripts or
manuscript families and their descent from earlier exemplars can be only partially
reconstructed [
Allen 1931]. From the scholia that survive in our
medieval manuscripts — which includes commentary that is derived from scholarship as
old as the second century BCE — we learn of readings attributed to the texts of
various cities (some as far away as Marseilles), texts in the collection of
individuals, texts called “common” or “standard,” and texts that are “more refined”
[
Nagy 2004, 20].
[6] In
the literature that survives from Classical Athens, especially in the Attic orators
and in Plato, we find quotations of Homer, some quite extensive, and these texts can
vary considerably from the medieval texts of Homer on which we rely for our printed
editions ([
Dué 2001a] and [
Dué 2001b]). Some of our
earliest witnesses to the text of Homer are the fragmentary papyri that survived in
the sands of Egypt from the third century BCE onwards. These texts too are often
quite different than their medieval counterparts [
Dué 2001a]. A
multitextual approach can be explicit about these many different channels of
transmission, placing each in its historical and cultural framework and allowing the
reader to understand better their relationships to one another, rather than giving
the false impression that they are all of the same kind and same time.
From these sources, we find a number of different kinds of multiforms as well. We
looked at two examples of different, but equally formulaic, words and phrases, and
this is one kind of multiform. There are also smaller cases of word change,
differences in word division or accent, and other matters of orthography. These
differences are important for what they can reveal about the textual tradition and
the editorial practices of earlier stages of the transmission. As we look at the
earliest sources, papyri from the 3rd century BCE or quotations in Classical authors,
such as Plato or Aeschines, we also see differences on the level of entire lines of
the poetry. There are numerous verses in the papyri that are seemingly intrusive from
the standpoint of the medieval transmission. These additional verses, the so-called
plus verses, are not present in the majority of the medieval manuscripts of the
Iliad. Other verses that are canonical in the
medieval manuscripts are absent from the papyri — these may be termed minus verses.
Composition in performance allows for expansion or compression of the theme or
episode that the singer is performing, and these plus and minus verses are evidence
of what a performance might have included, how the system underlying the performance
operates, and what the epic tradition included [
Dué 2001a].
Yet even as we emphasize the historical significance of these multitudinous channels
of transmission, we must be careful to acknowledge that there was never one
Iliad or one
Odyssey at any
given time or place in the ancient world that we can seek to reconstruct. In earlier
stages of the project, we have ourselves been tempted to create and include such a
reconstruction. For example, we had considered attempting to reconstruct what would
have been the “common” or koinē text at the time of Aristarchus, the great
second century BCE scholar and editor who worked at the ancient library at Alexandria
[
Dué and Ebbott 2004]. Having this particular text would be a dream come true,
for Aristarchus’ critical work on the text of Homer is referred to throughout the
scholia that survive in the margins of our medieval manuscripts. But here the
situation is no less complex, no less multiform. As Gregory Nagy has demonstrated,
Aristarchus had available to him at the library of Ptolemaic Alexandria a great
number of Homeric texts (see especially [
Nagy 2004]). Aristarchus’
practice was to collate the many texts known to him and to comment on the various
readings that he found, often asserting which reading he felt to be the correct one.
Unlike a modern editor, however, Aristarchus confined his opinions to his commentary,
which was published in its own separate volume. The text that would have accompanied
this commentary was what Aristarchus and subsequent scholars refer to as the
“standard” or “common” edition. But was this indeed a single edition
that is reconstructable? Aristarchus himself does not seem to have ever published his
own text of Homer, with his own preferred readings. But even if he had, we would know
from his commentaries about the many other texts that were available to him, and so
once again we are forced to confront the multiformity of the Homeric tradition.
An emphasis on actual, complete witnesses to the transmission has thus driven many of
our considerations in building the Multitext.
[7] Presenting the witnesses to the
user without the obstacle of an apparatus entails a fundamental change from textual
criticism as practiced for print editions. As Edward Vanhoutte says about his
electronic edition of
De trein der traagheid, which
“guarantees the completely equal
treatment of each version of the text in the generating processes invoked by the
user,” such an approach “deliberately puts some central
concepts and issues of conventional textual scholarship in crisis. Amongst them
the base text, the edited text, the textual apparatus, and the variant. All of
these concepts are dependent on the static perception of the scholarly
edition”
[
Vanhoutte 2007, 165–166]. The move from a static perception to a dynamic presentation is central to our
editorial standards for the Homer Multitext: that is, a shift not just in offering
the witnesses to users, but in giving them tools to make comparisons and other
relational assessments. Such tools allow for “a relative concept of calibration,” where there is
no one text as the “base text” or “invariant” that the others are compared,
but where comparison of multiformity happens dynamically in an ever shifting
selection of texts [
Van Hulle 2004, 514].
[8]
We share with many digital editions the value of including images of the sources,
especially for wider access to fragile manuscripts ([
Dahlström 2000],
[
Monroy et. al. 2002], [
Kiernan 2005], [
Robinson 2003], [
Ulman 2006], [
Porter 2007]; for examples of textual edition projects using images, see the
Internet Shakespeare
Editions and the
Digital Donne
project). The Multitext has now published for the first time digital images
of three manuscripts of the
Iliad housed in the Marciana
Library in Venice, Italy: the tenth-century Marcianus Graecus Z. 454 (= 822), the
eleventh-century Marcianus Graecus Z. 453 (= 821), and the twelfth/thirteenth-century
Marcianus Graecus Z. 458 (= 841). (See
http://zeus.chsdc.org/chs/manuscript_images.)
Each manuscript contains its own set of scholarly commentary in the
margins. The initial publication of these images is focused on making them available
as quickly as possible,
[9] but as we work to integrate them
with other components of the Multitext, an important question we will be facing is
how to make them truly accessible, not just available, to a range of users broader
than just those who happen to be experts in Greek palaeography (cf. [
Kiernan 2005]).
Fluidity vs. Rigidity and a Diachronic Approach to Homeric Poetry
Here it is once again instructive to return to the comparison we made earlier to the
transmission of the works of Shakespeare. Now that we have a better understanding of
both the performance medium in which the Homeric poems were created and the
complexities of their textual transmission, we can better appreciate how the two sets
of texts share features but also differ in important ways. The transmission of
Shakespeare’s plays is indeed quite complex. Authoritative editions of the plays were
not overseen by Shakespeare himself, and the earliest editions seem to have in some
instances at least been made on the basis of faulty transcripts of actual
performances, requiring substantial reconstruction of the text [
Greg 1955]. The First Folio edition of 1623, which is the most
authoritative of the early editions, was put together seven years after Shakespeare’s
death by two actors in the King’s Men, the company for which Shakespeare wrote. The
texts of the thirty-six plays included in the edition are of various provenance. Some
derive from the heavily annotated copies prepared for prompters; others are based on
Shakespeare’s own working drafts. It is clear that some plays were revised for
subsequent performances during the course of Shakespeare’s lifetime, with the result
that there are multiple versions of the same work that are equally Shakespearean.
Editors of such important Classical authors as (Greek) Aristophanes and (Roman) Ovid
face similar difficulties.
What the plays of Shakespeare share with the Homeric tradition is that they were
created in the context of performance. Individual instances of performance could
result in new texts, depending on the occasion of performance, the intervention of
actors and/or others involved in the production, or the desire of Shakespeare
himself. A transcript created on the basis of a given performance would no doubt vary
from transcripts created on other occasions. Such variations can teach us a great
deal about the performance traditions of Shakespeare’s plays, the creative process,
and Shakespeare’s working methods. Scholars of recent decades have rightly seen the
value in the variation that we find in the textual transmission, and several
web-based projects have been developed that make the quartos and folios available to
an interested public. Of particular note is
The Internet Shakespeare
Editions, which plans to publish high-resolution photographs of these early
editions together with a variety of supplementary information, electronic texts, and
fully edited (modern) editions.
But the Shakespeare analogy can only be taken so far. Homeric poetry was not only
created for performance, it was created in performance. As
we noted previously, in the earliest stages of the tradition no song would have ever
been sung the same way twice. The content and form of the songs were traditional and
the tradition was a highly conservative one, but the compositional process was
nonetheless dynamic. As editors of the Homer Multitext, we are not seeking to recover
the most authoritative performance, because such a performance does not exist. Rather
than screen out variation in the search for the author’s own words, we seek out
variation for what it can tell us about Homeric composition-in-performance and the
evolution of the texts we now recognize as our Iliad and
Odyssey.
Perhaps unexpectedly, a much more modern text provides us with a different and
interesting analogy. The Homer Multitext faces some of the same questions, problems,
and demands as those laid out by Loranger for an editor of William Burroughs’s
Naked Lunch
[
Loranger 1999]. Loranger points out that there is no one definitive
version of
Naked Lunch, that none of the changes to the
narrative “can be considered accidental
variants … [or] deliberate authorial revisions” (#2). The narrative
underwent an evolution (#1), and its assembly has its own mythology, as she terms it
(#6–7). She begins and ends by looking for a
reliable edition, and
argues that such an edition would have to allow readers to move, in any order,
between the different textual elements, fragments, and even images, such as the
drawings Burroughs produced for the U.S. edition (#1, 24). We are in no way looking
to create a “postmodern” Homer, but what we know about oral
composition-in-performance, in which each time the song is sung it is composed anew,
requires a similar attention to the evolution as much as we can trace it and to the
creation or application of tools for allowing the reader to explore and understand
that evolution.
The texts on which modern printed editions of the
Iliad
and
Odyssey are based date to the Medieval period, the
earliest being the tenth-century CE manuscript known as the Venetus A (Marcianus
Graecus Z. 454). These texts do not differ substantially from one another, although
there is no “vulgate” text on which the others are based; there is some
variation to be found among the different manuscript groups. If we proceed
considerably back in time, to the fragmentary papyrus texts of the Ptolemaic era
(third to second centuries BCE) we find substantial variation. Still earlier are the
quotations of Homer in authors of the Classical era. These too are often
substantially different from the medieval texts. Further back than that we cannot go,
because of the lack of textual witnesses before the Classical period, but internal
evidence indicates the poetic tradition extends as far back as the sixteenth century
BCE, a date that, incidentally, long precedes most accepted dates for an historical
Trojan War [
Sherratt 1990]; [
Watkins 1995, 499].
Needless to say, whatever songs were being created in the sixteenth century BCE would
likely have resembled our
Iliad and
Odyssey only very vaguely, but they were nevertheless composed in the
same system of language that produced these epics.
The questions of how much variation is natural to the Homeric tradition and how much
variation can be recovered are complicated ones to answer, because they tie into all
of the uncertainty surrounding the figure of Homer (if he ever existed) and the
nature of Homeric authorship [
Nagy 1996b], [
Dué 2006]. It
was at one time fashionable in Homeric Studies to apply statistics to the Homeric
corpus.
[10] Scholars attempted to use mathematical methods to find what parts
of the Homeric diction are “formulaic” and what parts are innovations on the
part of a master poet, imagined as Homer. Parry, for example, by way of demonstration
analyzed the first 15 verses of the
Iliad and found them
to be over 90% “formulaic”
[
Parry 1971, 301–304]. Later, Albert Lord analyzed the same passage, and although his definition of
the individual formulas involved differed slightly from Parry’s the results were
roughly the same [
Lord 2000, 142–144]. The fundamental problems
with this kind of analysis are twofold, as Lord himself pointed out already in 1960.
First and foremost, it is based on faulty data. Only two of the large number of
Archaic Greek epics that we know were current in antiquity have survived to the
current day. If more of the Epic Cycle (as these other epics are commonly called)
survived, we would have a much larger amount of material to work with. Partly because
of the relatively small amount of comparison material, our understanding of the
nature of the formula and the composition process is imperfect. Secondly, if the
tradition in which the Greek poets were working was as Parry and Lord described,
every verse should be formulaic, and there is much to suggest that this true of
Homeric poetry [
Lord 2000, 47, 147].
For Shakespeare, multiformity — that is to say, the existence of multiple versions of
the same text — is an unintended accident of transmission. For most of the plays,
there is only one version that Shakespeare himself would have considered definitive,
even if he would acknowledge other drafts he produced and even though we today would
no doubt consider those drafts worth saving. For Homeric epic, the relative
uniformity of the medieval manuscripts is the accident of transmission, and
multiformity is the natural result of the process by which they were created.
Hundreds of the relatively uniform Medieval texts of Homer survive, whereas no
complete text of Homer survives on papyrus, and only certain passages are quoted in
Classical authors. In a 2001 publication, Dué examined in detail a Homeric quotation
from the orator Aeschines together with some Ptolemaic papyri [
Dué 2001a]. Dué found that the kinds of variation presented in those sources are of a
formulaic nature. There are extra verses, alternative verses, and variation within
lines, but the nature of the variations is such that they are equally “Homeric”
as those that survived in our Medieval transmission. This kind of variation, which is
primarily on the level of formula and fluctuation in the number of verses, would not
interest all readers of Homer, but it is what is to be expected in a relatively late
stage of the transmission, at a point when the poems were largely fixed. For even as
early as the Classical period — whence the earliest textual evidence survives — the
Homeric poems seem to have had a cohesiveness and unity that borders on the adjective
“fixed”.
Before we attempt to go even further back in time, and consider a far more fluid
state of the text, it might be helpful here to consider the evolutionary model for
the development of the Homeric poems that has been proposed by Gregory Nagy. Nagy
traces the evolution of the poems in five stages, that go from “most fluid” to “most rigid”
[
Nagy 2004, 27]:
- a relatively most fluid period, with no written texts, extending from the
early second millennium into the middle of the eighth century in the first
millennium BCE.
- a more formative or “Panhellenic” period, still with no written texts,
from the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the sixth BCE.
- a definitive period, centralized in Athens, with potential texts in the
sense of transcripts, at any or several points from the middle of
the sixth century to the later part of the fourth BCE; this period starts with
the reform of Homeric performance traditions in Athens during the régime of the
Peisistratidai.
- a standardizing period, with texts in the sense of transcripts or even
scripts, from the later part of the fourth century to the
middle of the second BCE; this period starts with the reform of Homeric
performance traditions in Athens during the régime of Demetrius of Phalerum,
which lasted from 317 to 307 BCE
- a relatively most rigid period, with texts as scripture, from
the middle of the second century onward; this period starts with the completion
of Aristarchus’ editorial work on the Homeric texts, not long after 150 BCE or
so, which is a date that also marks the general disappearance of the so-called
“eccentric” papyri.
When we discuss the relative multiformity of the Classical and Ptolemaic eras, we are
speaking of periods (3) and (4) in Nagy’s model, the “definitive” period and
“standardizing” period, respectively. It is interesting to compare Nagy’s
suggestion of the possibility of “transcripts” at this time to our discussion of
the multiformity that we find in the textual transmission of Shakespeare, where we
noted the influence of transcripts on the early printed editions of the plays. During
these centuries, there was an interaction between performances and texts, with many
performances (and state regulations of such performances) and many texts potentially
influencing one another. The relative multiformity we see in our sources from these
periods highlight the lasting dynamism of the performance tradition. The introduction
of written texts did not shut this tradition down, but participated in it.
Can a Multitext of Homer tell us anything about Nagy’s periods (1) and (2), the
“most fluid” and “formative” phases of our Iliad and Odyssey? This is our hope, that by
making available the historical witnesses to the texts of these poems, as they
circulated in antiquity and the Medieval period, we can allow users to understand
with even more precision the workings of the traditional system within which our
poems were created, and the semantic possibilities that are opened up when the system
is viewed diachronically.
The most fluid and formative phases of Homeric poetry are only accessible to us
through careful study of what survived through to later periods, and in this sense
our project is somewhat speculative. Our knowledge of other oral traditions, studied
by anthropologists working while these traditions were/are still flourishing, is
another important resource that can help us go further back, as we consider the kinds
of meaning that are conveyed and preserved by performance generated texts [
Foley 1991], [
Foley 1995], [
Foley 1999]. The
difficulties inherent in the enterprise should not deter us from the work, however,
and that the answers revealed by a Multitext may at times makes us uncomfortable
because of our own notions about Homer should not keep us from raising these
questions.
It has frequently been asserted that the multiformity of the Homeric tradition is not
interesting, and that the few variations we do find are banal and inconsequential.
From our perspective, this assertion is simply untrue (see especially [
Dué 2001a]). It seems that the expectation or desire would be for a
recorded variation that would dramatically change the story — Achilles goes home!
Odysseus dies at sea! But the idea that the manuscripts, coming so late in the
tradition as they do, would have as much multiformity as earlier stages of the
textual tradition, not to mention the full oral tradition itself, is both misinformed
and misleading. What is interesting about the multiforms that are recorded in our
textual sources — and let us emphasize again that the older the source, the greater
the multiformity we see — is that they are both a window onto the underlying system
of oral poetry as well as being crucial evidence for the textual tradition itself. It
cannot be denied that the multiforms in the manuscripts, papyri, scholia, and
quotations have much to teach us about the composition and transmission of the
poetry. In turn, they also provide substantial food for thought in how we then
interpret the poetry that has been transmitted. The profit to be gained here is not
in the kinds of variants that would make a huge difference in any one line or
episode, but that do make a significant difference in our understanding of the system
of Homeric epic as a whole.
The multiforms go to the heart of the Homeric Question. It would be intellectually
dishonest and scientifically invalid, moreover, to try to show how “multiform”
our text of Homer is with percentages, charts and graphs — though as we have pointed
out, such attempts have been made. It is more intellectually honest to assert that
every verse in Homeric poetry is at least potentially a multiform, and to explore the
implications of that potential whenever we analyze the text for its poetic
possibilities. The Homer Multitext seeks to give users many of the tools they need to
confront and explore the poetics of a multiform epic tradition.
We know, therefore, that the circumstances of the composition of the Homeric epics
demand a new kind of scholarly edition, a new kind of representation. We believe that
a digital criticism of the witnesses to the poetry provides a means to construct one.
Now the mission is to envision and create the Multitext so that it is true to these
standards. The framework and tools that will connect these texts and make them
dynamically useful are, as Peter Robinson has frankly stated ([
Robinson 2003] and [
Robinson 2005b]), the challenge that
lies before us, as it does for other digital scholarly editions. How shall we
highlight multiforms so as to make them easy to find and compare? We cannot simply
have a list of variants, as some digital editions have done, for this would take them
once again out of their context within the textual transmission and in many ways
repeat the false impression that a printed apparatus gives.
[11] Another
consideration is that the hexameter line in Homeric epic is a unit of composition, so
we want to display and compare complete lines — not just point out what differences
exist within the line, as an apparatus often does.
[12] In addition to
this need for easy comparison, we need to display lines as part of whole texts to
maintain the historical contexts of the witnesses. But we also need a way for our
users to find compositional multiforms without already being aware of their existence
or without reading every line of every witness.
Foundational principles of the Homer Multitext
Given the complexity of the Homeric transmission and these challenges, one might well
ask how such an ambitious project can be achieved. The technological infrastructure
of the project has been described on the
project website and a
series of technological papers have been commissioned to document how we will proceed
(see
http://katoptron.holycross.edu/cocoon/diginc/techpub). As we continue to
build our collection of texts, there are still questions to be answered about how to
construct the architecture to achieve the visual representation we envision and that
will achieve the results we have described here. But no matter what the details end
up being, we have committed to three foundational principles: collaboration, open
access, and interoperability. We would like to conclude this essay by emphasizing
them, for these principles are essential to this project but also vital to the future
of the humanities as a whole.
First and foremost is the collaborative nature of the project. Dozens of scholars of
every rank and from many different kinds of institutions currently play vital roles,
contributing their own areas of expertise. Although the model for Homeric research is
most often that of the individual genius working alone, we suggest that the kind of
collaboration that is at the heart of the Multitext allows for a higher quality of
research and analysis that can be accomplished in a more timely manner. As other
digital edition projects amply demonstrate, these large, long-term undertakings
simply cannot be accomplished without this fruitful, energizing collaboration. We
have been fortunate to collaborate with technologically informed classical scholars:
indeed, one special aspect of our project is that the information architects,
Christopher Blackwell and Neel Smith, are themselves Classics scholars, and we expect
that this project will demonstrate how our sustained collaboration can lead to more
thoughtful, thorough, and creative scholarship on the Homeric epics.
Second, the Homer Multitext project is an open access project: that is, it is
on-line, free of charge to all, and free of most copyright or licensing restrictions.
A prime example of our ideals of open access is the digital photographs of the three
manuscripts. These images will be a significant element of the Multitext, but even
before we have fully integrated them into the project, we want to make them available
to any and all through the CHS website so that others may use them in their own
research. As other digital scholarly editions have noted (e.g., the Cervantes
Project, see [
Monroy et. al. 2002]), providing users access to these rare and
normally inaccessible manuscripts or other texts is an important goal for the project
in and of itself.
Now that we have collaborated with so many scholars who share this ideal of open
access (and learned from the many open access projects that now exist in the
Humanities), it sometimes seems almost unnecessary to assert it. Yet almost as soon
as we think so, we are once again faced with proprietary systems that cannot work
with others, or a publishing ethos that believes barriers to access are either
necessary, profitable, or at least acceptable. (
The American Philological Association,
for example, recently added a “Members Only” section of the website, which
includes on-line access to the APA-sponsored journal,
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association.
“Members Only” requires an annual membership fee and perpetuates an elitist
notion of the field.) We instead believe that it is in the best interest of all who
work in the humanities to embrace open access. Doing so is a matter of survival for
our field in particular. The popularity of movies like
Gladiator and
Troy and the HBO television
series
Rome indicates that the Classical world continues
to fascinate and have relevance for our culture, and yet the importance of the study
of ancient Greece and Rome at the university level has been questioned in recent
decades by budget-minded administrators. Classicists have themselves partially to
blame. Too often we cultivate that elite mentality that is off-putting to newcomers
to the field and administrators alike. Indeed it is a sense of elitism that very
often promotes barriers to access to our scholarly resources. We must reach out in
order to sustain our discipline, and we must create resources for our discipline that
adhere to open access standards. The Center for Hellenic Studies strives to be a
model for other institutions in its support for digital scholarship and in its
commitment to making that scholarship available and accessible, free of charge.
Third, we are committed to using international standards based technology. We want
our project to talk to other digital initiatives in the Classics and in the
humanities at large. We want scholars and readers to be able
easily to
find and use the texts and images that are part of this project, including re-using
them for their own purposes. Toward this goal, we use TEI-conformant XML and Creative
Commons Licensing in our publishing, and scholars affiliated with the CHS have
developed the Canonical Text Services protocol, described on the Multitext website
(see
http://chs.harvard.edu/chs/technological_infrastructure). All three of
these principles are themselves connected to a larger ideal of sharing these texts
and our work with as large an audience as possible, and not allowing barriers or
restrictions to prevent others from using them in their own research or in other
creative endeavors.
For these foundational principles we are indebted to the ideals of the
Stoa Consortium and its founder Ross Scaife.
The Multitext was born in a summer meeting at the Center for Hellenic Studies, to
which Ross was invited as a potential collaborator. He quickly became our mentor and
guide in the ever-evolving world of electronic publishing in the Humanities. It was
clear from the beginning that Ross had a vision that extended far past the point
where most classicists were working at that time. He saw how Classics could fit into
a global, interdisciplinary, and collaborative environment, and he was willing to be
a pioneer in enforcing standards that today keep the web open and democratic. We are
grateful for his leadership and guidance as we strive to maintain these standards and
attain the ideals of all a digital medium can do for research on Homeric epic. We
will miss his expertise and his patient and generous giving of that expertise, but
most of all, we miss him as a cherished colleague and friend.