On edited archives and archived editions

Abstract

Building on a longstanding terminological discussion in the field of textual scholarship, this essay explores the archival and editorial potential of the digital scholarly edition. Following Van Hulle and Eggert, the author argues that in the digital medium these traditionally distinct activities now find the space they need to complement and reinforce one another. By critically examining some of the early and more recent theorists and adaptors of this relatively new medium, the essay aims to shed a clearer light on some of its strengths and pitfalls. To conclude, the essay takes the discussion further by offering a broader reflection on the difficulties of providing a 'definitive' archival base transcription of especially handwritten materials, questioning if this should be something to aspire to for the edition in the first place. Keywords Digital scholarly editing. Textual criticism. Archives. Editions For the scholarly edition, the move to the digital medium seems to have initiated something of an identity crisis. More than 30 years after the Text Encoding Initiative was established-a milestone in the development of digital text editing-the digital scholarly edition is still regularly being defined and redefined by the scholarly editing community. What is a digital scholarly edition? How is it different from a printed edition? Is it better? What are the things we can do now (or do better) that we could not do (as well) before? This is, of course, a healthy critical reflex that can be applauded in any scholarly discipline. And with considerably less time to adjust to the new medium than its print predecessor, it is only natural that we do not have all the answers yet. Acknowledging that this evolution-if not exactly a 'revolution' (Robinson 2016)-is still ongoing and that 'the possibilities of digital technologies are in constant flux,' Advances in Digital Scholarly Editing-a collection of extended abstracts of the DiXiT conferences in The Hague, Cologne, and Antwerp-avoids the difficulty of trying to define what is essentially still under development by giving the floor to 'a broad selection of the community of scholars' that is shaping it instead (Boot et al. 2017: 15).