Textual Scholarship and Text Encoding

Abstract

For the past 25 years the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) has assumed a central role in digital editing and textual scholarship, both as a modeling and analytical tool and as ontology for the phenomenology of the text and the page. In the same period, and most probably connected to this, a crucial shift has occurred in textual scholarship, with the role of the material support of texts – the document – taking central stage in theoretical reflection and practice. The impact of digital methodologies on textual scholarship is huge, multiform, and still waits to be fully assessed. The chapter therefore investigates the role of text encoding within the most recent development in theory of digital editing, as well as assessing its impact on the work and workflow of the editor. The role of technology in editorial work is analyzed by comparing two potentially opposite approaches: the evolution of the editor as encoder (and as programmer, and as web designer, and as publisher, and so on) and the demand for out-of-the-box editorial tools. The use of electronic tools in the editorial workflow (such as image manipulation software, collation tools, enhanced desks, and bibliography management) is changing not only the practice of editorial work, but also its theoretical bases, questioning editorial models and traditional roles. Connected to the use of TEI for editorial work, the last few years have seen a furious debate developing around the respective pros and cons of embedded and standoff markup; the chapter approaches this inevitable debate from an empirical, rather than a philosophical, point of view.

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