Editing Beckett: Towards a Bilingual Digital Genetic Edition of Samuel Beckett's Works

该项目旨在建立爱尔兰作家塞缪尔·贝克特（Samuel Beckett）作品的双语数字遗传版本，并通过创建一个编辑多种版本的现代文本的模型，为超越贝克特研究的数字学术编辑提供解决方案。在贝克特职业生涯的最后阶段，他允许查尔斯·克兰斯（Charles Krance）领导的一个编辑项目出版双语“基因”版本（重建文学作品起源的版本）。由于贝克特用法语和英语写作，并且几乎所有的作品都被翻译成这两种语言，所以这个项目显然是双语的。但是这个项目很短暂，只出版了三个版本。在这一印刷倡议的基础上，PI和Co-I获得了塞缪尔·贝克特遗产的许可（2010年12月23日），重建了贝克特全集的双语起源。这将是一个数字，在线版，利用最先进的技术，在文本研究。在文本学术理论中，数字档案和数字版本之间存在区别，在后一种类别中，“文本版本”（通常专注于一种阅读文本）和“手稿版本”（包括多个版本）之间存在区别。以BDMP（贝克特数字手稿项目）的数字档案材料为基础，提议的项目旨在制作这样一个“手稿版”。将贝克特每一部作品的原稿进行组装和数字化重组是一回事，对这些几乎难以辨认的手稿进行转录是另一回事。但结果仍然“只是”一个数字档案，即单个文档的集合。为了将数字档案转换为数字版本，该项目集成了一个“整理引擎”（使用户能够通过计算机辅助整理来比较文本版本）。具体而言，该项目将出版贝克特的短篇散文版本（《从一件废弃的作品》、《假的前程》、《所有的陌生》、《想象死去的想象》、《够了》、《迷失的人》、《平》、《虚无》、《失败》、《故事被讲述》、《法莱斯/悬崖》、《既不是》、《声音》、《寂静》）；批评作品；散文文本Mal vu Mal dit / Ill Seen Ill Said；小说《墨菲》；电视剧《呃乔》、《鬼三重奏》……但是云……、Quad、Nacht和Träume；电影;戏剧，不是我，是时间，是脚步。这个版本本身并不是一个目的：该项目还旨在展示这个版本如何在文学文本的解释中发挥作用，以及它如何有助于写作过程的研究（遗传批评）。这就是为什么数字版本伴随着辅助的印刷版（由布卢姆斯伯里出版社出版），解释了作品的发展，并解释了作者阅读和写作之间的互文联系。《贝克特的批评作品》将由费伯出版社出版，《贝克特是如何写作的》将由剑桥大学出版社出版。该项目的编辑模式包括作者的个人图书馆（既包括“现存”图书馆，也包括“虚拟”图书馆，即根据阅读笔记、信件和日记中的信息重建作者的阅读）以及手稿年表。它不仅支持跨版本的近距离阅读，还支持跨版本的远距离阅读，显示诸如修订模式之类的发展。其中一个将被更仔细研究的模式是取消或“切割”的行为。任何写作过程的这个关键方面都将在博德利图书馆（2023-24年冬季）的一个展览中与广大观众（包括GCSE和a -level学生，以及创意写作的学生）分享，这个展览暂时被称为“Cut”，它将展示贝克特（从雷丁大学借来）和其他现代作家的手稿。

The proposed project aims to establish a bilingual digital genetic edition of the Irish writer Samuel Beckett's works, and to offer solutions to digital scholarly editing that go beyond Beckett Studies by creating a model for editing modern texts that survive in multiple versions.Towards the end of Beckett's career, he gave his permission to an editorial project led by Charles Krance to publish bilingual 'genetic' editions (editions that reconstruct the genesis of the literary work). Since Beckett wrote in both French and English, and translated almost all of his works between these two languages, the project was explicitly bilingual. But the project was shortlived and only three editions were published. Building on this print initiative, the PI and Co-I obtained the Estate of Samuel Beckett's permission (23/12/2010) to reconstruct the bilingual genesis of Beckett's complete works. This will be a digital, online edition, making use of state-of-the-art techniques in textual scholarship.In the theory of textual scholarship, a distinction is made between digital archives and digital editions, and - within this latter category - between 'textual editions' (typically focusing on one reading text) and 'manuscript editions' (which include multiple versions). Building on material in the digital archive of the BDMP (the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project), the proposed project aims to produce such a 'manuscript edition'. Assembling and digitally reuniting manuscripts that belong to the genesis of each of Beckett's works singly is one thing, and making transcriptions of these often near-illegible manuscripts is another. But the result is still 'only' a digital archive in the sense of a collection of individual pieces of documentation. To turn the digital archive into a digital edition, the project integrates a 'collation engine' (enabling users to compare textual versions by means of computer-assisted collation).In concrete terms, the project will thus produce editions of Beckett's short prose (From an Abandoned Work; Faux Départs; All Strange Away; Imagination Dead Imagine; Enough; The Lost Ones; Ping; Lessness; Fizzles; As the Story Was Told; La Falaise/The Cliff; neither; Sounds; Still 3); the critical writings; the prose text Mal vu mal dit / Ill Seen Ill Said; the novel Murphy; the TV plays Eh Joe, Ghost Trio, ...but the clouds..., Quad, Nacht und Träume; Film; the plays Play, Not I, That Time, Footfalls.The edition is not an end in itself: the project also aims to show how this edition can be instrumental in the interpretation of literary texts and how it can contribute to the study of writing processes (genetic criticism). That is why the digital editions are accompanied by an ancillary print volume (published by Bloomsbury), explaining the development of the work and interpreting the intertextual links between the author's reading and his writing. 'Beckett's Critical Writings' will be published by Faber and Faber and an accessible monograph 'How Beckett Wrote' by Cambridge University Press. The project's editorial model includes the author's personal library (both the 'extant' library and a 'virtual' library, i.e. a reconstruction of the author's reading, based on information in reading notes, letters and diaries) as well as a Manuscript Chronology. It enables not only close reading across versions, but also distant reading across versions, showing developments such as patterns of revision. One of the patterns that will be studied more closely is the act of cancelling or 'cutting'. This crucial aspect of any writing process will be shared with a broad audience (including GCSE and A-level students, as well as students of creative writing) in an exhibition at the Bodleian Library (Winter 2023-24), provisionally called 'Cut', which will show manuscripts by Beckett (on loan from the University of Reading) and other modern writers.