0.6 Homer multitext project  (Page 9/15)

The last sentence here about diachrony can be linked with a point I make in my review of West’s edition of the Iliad : that Homeric multiformity needs to be viewed diachronically as well as synchronically (Nagy 2000 = 2004:71):

The multiformity of variations in the oral poetic context of composition-in-performance cannot be viewed exclusively from a synchronic perspective. A multitext edition of Homer is needed to provide a diachronic perspective on this multiformity. Ideally, a multitext edition of Homer should be formatted to display most clearly all the surviving textual variants, both vertical [= having to do with variations in the number of verses] and horizontal [= having to do with variations within verses]. It should have a base text (texte de base) that is free of arbitrary judgments, such as the choosing of one variant over another on the basis of the editor’s personal sense of what is right or wrong, better or worse. In other words, the base text needs to be formatted to show all locations where variants are attested, and all the variants that can be slotted into those locations—without privileging any of these variants. Working within the framework of “hupomnēmata,” editors of the base text may then proceed to analyze the variants from a diachronic perspective, making their own considered judgments about differences in the chronology, dialect, historical provenance, and so forth. For such a multitext edition, the most convenient base text would be the relatively most standard and common manuscript tradition. For Aristarchus, that base text was essentially the koinē version of Homer—what neo-Aristarcheans call the “vulgate” [Ludwich 1884:11-16 (“Die alte Vulgata”)]. As of this writing, the closest thing to such a base text is the Homer of van Thiel [1991, 1996]. Something much closer to an ideal, however, would be the edition of Aristarchus, if only it had survived. In fact, Aristarchus’ edition of Homer would have been the closest thing to what I am describing here as an ideal multitext edition.

When I say “ hupomnēmata ” here, I mean a modern equivalent of the ancient commentaries produced by Aristarchus, in which he inventoried and analyzed all the textual variants known to him. It is such a modern equivalent that is one of the goals of the projected Commentary on the Homeric Iliad that I mentioned earlier (Frame, Muellner, and Nagy 2010+), within the overall framework of the Homer Multitext project (Dué and Ebbott 2009+). A related project is a multitext edition of and commentary on Book X of the Iliad (Dué and Ebbott 2010; see also their article on Book X under Classics@, (External Link) ).

A general statement about the homer multitext project

On the website of the Center for Hellenic Studies, the core team of the Homer Multitext presents a general co-authored statement. I quote here the opening paragraph together with later paragraphs centering on the research that led to the project. This general co-authored statement complements the more specific statement that I have authored in my presentation above.