You Say Beowulf, I Say Biowulf by Julian Harrison.
From the post:
Students of medieval manuscripts will know that it’s always instructive to consult the originals, rather than to rely on printed editions. There are many aspects of manuscript culture that do not translate easily onto the printed page — annotations, corrections, changes of scribe, the general layout, the decoration, ownership inscriptions.
Beowulf is a case in point. Only one manuscript of this famous Old English epic poem has survived, which is held at the British Library (Cotton MS Vitellius A XV). The writing of this manuscript was divided between two scribes, the first of whom terminated their stint with the first three lines of f. 175v, ending with the words “sceaden mæl scyran”; their counterpart took over at this point, implying that an earlier exemplar lay behind their text, from which both scribes copied.
(…)
Another distinction between those two scribes, perhaps less familiar to modern students of the text, is the varying way in which they spell the name of the eponymous hero Beowulf. On 40 occasions, Beowulf’s name is spelt in the conventional manner (the first is found in line 18 of the standard editions, the last in line 2510). However, in 7 separate instances, the name is instead spelt “Biowulf” (“let’s call the whole thing off), the first case coming in line 1987 of the poem.
I think you will enjoy the post, to say nothing of the images of the manuscript.
My topic map concern is with:
There are many aspects of manuscript culture that do not translate easily onto the printed page — annotations, corrections, changes of scribe, the general layout, the decoration, ownership inscriptions.
I take it that non-facsimile publication in print loses some of the richness of the manuscript.
My question is: To what extent have we duplicated the limitations of print media in digital publications?
For example, a book may have more than one index, but not more than one index of the same kind.
That is you can’t find a book that has multiple distinct subject indexes. Not surprising considering the printing cost of duplicate subject indexes, but we don’t have that limitation with electronic indexes.
Or do we?
In my experience anyway, electronic indexes mimic their print forefathers. Each electronic index stands on its own, even if each index is of the same work.
Assume we have a Spanish and English index, for the casual reader, to the plays of Shakespeare. Even in electronic form, I assume they would be created and stored as separate indexes.
But isn’t that simply replicating what we would experience with a print edition?
Can you think of other cases where our experience with print media has shaped our choices with digital artifacts?