| This edition of the Morte Arthure demonstrates a new approach to hypertextual editing that eschews the archival model for critical engagement with the literary object. The core of my project is a critical text of the Morte Arthure's first 1221 lines encoded in extensible Mark-up Language (XML). XML is a syntax that allows editors to indicate a limitless number of features for any character, word, or phrase that can be displayed and searched in differing ways by the text's audiences. Readers can use this particular XML document to view the poem with metrically deficient lines highlighted, conjectural emendations correcting such deficiencies, or the unaltered manuscript reading among other options. Furthermore, they can choose to display only select emendations based on conditions like whether a reading is supported by codicological evidence or is the most probable of all potential interventions. This freedom, while mediated by critical arguments, is accompanied by transparent representations of textual evidence that expose every editorial decision to immediate scrutiny. Such openness requires from the audience in return an active consideration of disciplines ranging from codicology to statistical analysis.; Beyond its impact on reading habits, however, this work also challenges those preconceptions stunting the growth of electronic editing more generally. Currently, the vanguard of hypertextual studies suggests that work in the digital medium is "post critical" and dependent more on the reader/viewer than the editor. While experience proves the collaborative nature of hypertext, the endeavor is hypercritical rather than "post-critical" since mediation itself becomes an object of study. Even when the decision between variants is left to individual readers, a choice to view emendations based on either codicological or metrical evidence must be anticipated by a decision to encode those options and explain their value. Therefore, the editor is not diminished but rather takes on new responsibilities as an advocate for competing variants who must also suggest the most plausible readings to his audience. In essence, this edition of the Morte Arthure underscores the importance of traditional textual disciplines while demonstrating new applications for these skills in digital media. |
