Genetic editing ( French ''critique génétique'';

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

''genetische Kritik'') is an approach to scholarly editing in which an

exemplar An exemplar is a person, a place, an object, or some other entity that serves as a predominant example of a given concept (e.g. "The heroine became an ''exemplar'' in courage to the children"). It may also refer to: * Exemplar, a well-known scienc ...

is seen as derived from a dossier of other

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...

s and events. The derivation can be through physical

cut and paste In human–computer interaction and user interface design, cut, copy, and paste are related commands that offer an interprocess communication technique for transferring data through a computer's user interface. The ''cut'' command removes the ...

; writing or drawing in a variety of media; quotation,

annotation An annotation is extra information associated with a particular point in a document or other piece of information. It can be a note that includes a comment or explanation. Annotations are sometimes presented in the margin of book pages. For anno ...

or correction; acts of physical defacement; etc. Genetic editing aims to reconstruct the sequence of actions on the manuscript and exactly which parts of the manuscript were acted upon. Where multiple manuscripts have been combined (through for example cut and paste or quotation).

Overview

Whereas traditional scholarly editing can be seen as constructing a new document drawing together and comparing many source documents to cast light on a work, genetic editing closely examines a single

extant Extant is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Extant taxon, a taxon which is not extinct, ...

manuscript and traces back each aspect to cast light on the work. Genetic editing is named by analogy with genetics manuscripts (individuals) are derived from other manuscripts (or previous states of the same manuscript) and with the derivation tree being a partial

ordered tree In graph theory, a tree is an undirected graph in which any two vertices are connected by ''exactly one'' path, or equivalently a connected acyclic undirected graph. A forest is an undirected graph in which any two vertices are connected by '' ...

Genetic editing models

Genetic editing is strong in European, particularly French and German,

textual scholarship Textual scholarship (or textual studies) is an umbrella term for disciplines that deal with describing, transcribing, editing or annotating texts and physical documents. Overview Textual research is mainly historically oriented. Textual scholars s ...

. The German genetic editing, which has been associated with synoptic telescoping has a different method of presentation from the Anglo-American model. The primary model and test case of German editions has been

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

while in England and the United States it is

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, who did not leave manuscripts of his works. Completed works of genetic editing are known as genetic editions. These documents are similar to documentary editions but it also include information detailing the different phases of writing and rewriting of the manuscript. The

Text Encoding Initiative The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) is a text-centric community of practice in the academic field of digital humanities, operating continuously since the 1980s. The community currently runs a mailing list, meetings and conference series, and main ...

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

format has support for encoding of genetic editions.

Examples

* HyperNietzsche https://web.archive.org/web/20080706123702/http://www.hypernietzsche.org/ * Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition (1984; Gabler, Steppe, and Melchior)

References

Digital humanities Editing Textual criticism Textual scholarship {{philology-stub