The Homer Multitext Project: An Introduction

The Homer Multitext (HMT) of Harvard University’s Center
for Hellenic Studies (CHS) in Washington, D.C., seeks to take
advantage of the digital medium to give a more accurate visual
representation of the textual tradition of Homeric epic than
is possible on the printed page. Most signifi cantly, we intend to
reveal more readily the oral performance tradition in which
the epics were composed, a tradition in which variation from
performance to performance was natural and expected. The
Homeric epics were composed again and again in performance:
the digital medium, which can more readily handle multiple
texts, is therefore eminently suitable for a critical edition of
Homeric poetry—indeed, the fullest realization of a critical
edition of Homer may require a digital medium. In other words,
the careful construction of a digital library of Homeric texts,
plus tools and accompanying material to assist in interpreting
those texts, can help us to recover and better realize evidence
of what preceded the written record of these epics. In this
presentation we will explain how the oral, traditional poetry
of these epics and their textual history call for a different
editorial practice from what has previously been done and
therefore require a new means of representation. We will also
demonstrate how the Homer Multitext shares features with
but also has different needs and goals from other digital editions
of literary works that were composed in writing. Finally, we
will discuss our goal of making these texts openly available so
that anyone can use them for any research purpose, including
purposes that we can’t ourselves anticipate.
The oral traditional nature of Homeric poetry makes these
texts that have survived different in important ways from texts
that were composed in writing, even those that also survive in
multiple and differing manuscripts. We have learned from the
comparative fi eldwork of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, who
studied and recorded a living oral tradition during the 1930s
and again in the 1950s in what was then Yugoslavia, that the
Homeric epics were composed in performance during a long
oral tradition that preceded any written version (Parry 1971,
Lord 1960, Lord 1991, and Lord 1995; see also Nagy 1996a
and Nagy 2002). In this tradition, the singer did not memorize
a static text prior to performance, but would compose the
song as he sang it. One of the most important revelations of
the fi eldwork of Parry and Lord is that every time the song is
performed in an oral composition-in-performance tradition,
it is composed anew. The singers themselves do not strive to
innovate, but they nevertheless compose a new song each time
(Dué 2002, 83-89). The mood of the audience or occasion of
performance are just two factors that can infl uence the length
of a song or a singer’s choices between competing, but still
traditional, elements of plot. The term “variant,” as employed
by textual critics when evaluating witnesses to a text, is not
appropriate for such a compositional process. Lord explained
the difference this way: “the word multiform is more accurate
than ‘variant,’ because it does not give preference or precedence
to any one word or set of words to express an idea; instead it
acknowledges that the idea may exist in several forms” (Lord
1995, 23). Our textual criticism of Homeric epic, then, needs
to distinguish what may genuinely be copying mistakes and
what are performance multiforms: that is, what variations we
see are very likely to be part of the system and the tradition in
which these epics were composed (Dué 2001).
Once we begin to think about the variations as parts of the
system rather than as mistakes or corruptions, textual criticism
of the Homeric texts can then address fresh questions. Some
of the variations we see in the written record, for example,
reveal the fl exibility of this system. Where different written
versions record different words, but each phrase or line is
metrically and contextually sound, we must not necessarily
consider one “correct” or “Homer” and the other a “mistake”
or an “interpolation.” Rather, each could represent a different
performance possibility, a choice that the singer could make,
and would be making rapidly without reference to a set text
(in any sense of that word).
Yet it is diffi cult to indicate the parity of these multiforms in
a standard critical edition on the printed page. One version
must be chosen for the text on the upper portion of the
page, and the other recorded variations must be placed in
an apparatus below, often in smaller text, a placement that
necessarily gives the impression that these variations are
incorrect or at least less important. Within a digital medium,
however, the Homer Multitext will be able to show where
such variations occur, indicate clearly which witnesses record
them, and allow users to see them in an arrangement that
more intuitively distinguishes them as performance multiforms.
Thus a digital criticism—one that can more readily present
parallel texts—enables a more comprehensive understanding
of these epics. An approach to editing Homer that embraces
the multiformity of both the performative and textual phases
of the tradition—that is to say, a multitextual approach—can
convey the complexity of the transmission of Homeric epic in
a way that is simply impossible on the printed page.
We know that the circumstances of the composition of the
Homeric epics demand a new kind of scholarly edition, a new
kind of representation. We believe that a digital criticism of
the witnesses to the poetry provides a means to construct
one. Now the mission is to envision and create the Multitext
so that it is true to these standards. The framework and tools
that will connect these texts and make them dynamically useful
are, as Peter Robinson has frankly stated (Robinson 2004 and
Robinson 2005), the challenge that lies before us, as it does
for other digital scholarly editions. How shall we highlight
multiforms so as to make them easy to fi nd and compare? We
cannot simply have a list of variants, as some digital editions
have done, for this would take them once again out of their
context within the textual transmission and in many ways
repeat the false impression that a printed apparatus gives.
Breaking away from a print model is, as others have observed
(Dahlström 2000, Robinson 2004), not as easy as it might seem,
and digital editions have generally not succeeded yet in doing
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so. How do we guide users through these many resources in a
structured but not overly pre-determined or static way? Some
working toward digital editions or other digital collections
promote the idea of the reader or user as editor (Robinson
2004, Ulman 2006, the Vergil Project at http://vergil.classics.
upenn.edu/project.html). Yet Dahlström (2000, section 4)
warned that a “hypermedia database exhibiting all versions of
a work, enabling the user to choose freely between them and
to construct his or her ‘own’ version or edition, presupposes a
most highly competent user, and puts a rather heavy burden on
him or her.” This type of digital edition “threatens to bury the
user deep among the mass of potential virtuality.” Especially
because we do not want to limit the usefulness of this project
to specialized Homeric scholars only, a balance between
freedom of choice and structured guidance is important. We
are not alone in grappling with the questions, and the need
to recognize and represent the oral, traditional nature of
Homeric poetry provides a special challenge in our pursuit of
the answers.
References
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