A. Introduction

There are at least two possible objectives in making a skaldic edition:

a) to recover/reconstruct and interpret the archetype, the earliest written version, as being the closest we can get to the skald’s original text (often oral); or

b) to identify a ‘best’ or ‘main’ text in a particular ms., and to present and interpret that in the best way possible.

In practice, except for editions of individual manuscripts, most editions represent a compromise between the two, though they differ in the extent to which they adopt a synthetic approach, in which readings from mss other than the chosen main ms. are incorporated where necessary or desirable. The new edition will also aim for a reasonable compromise: its objective is a), but a modified version of b) is a major part of the route to that objective. A carefully selected ‘main ms.’ will be presented, but the whole of the ms. evidence will be considered in order to discern points at which the main ms. may contain a corruption or secondary reading. Where there is good evidence for this, stemmatic or other, the superior variant reading will be substituted. The main text, then, will be not a patchwork of favoured readings, but based solidly on one reliable ms., corrected from the remaining ms. evidence. The text will also be supplemented in the electronic edition by images of texts from selected mss, some with transcriptions.

In the extreme situation of a verse preserved in ms. traditions so discrepant that they cannot be reconciled or conflated, the full text of both versions may be given partially separate treatment (>> 4. Guidelines on presentation for submission).

Editors should give a summary of mss and their relations in the introduction to individual poems and indicate how they have treated them. The General Introduction to the final edition will also contain consolidated discussions of major ms. groupings.

References