Studies on the Textual Transmission of Plato's Works on the Basis of an Analysis of Variants in Later So-Called Textually Derivative Medieval Manuscripts

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370363
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: European literature
• Research Institution: Josai International University
• Principal Investigator: TAKI Akitsugu 城西国際大学, 環境社会学部, 准教授 (60458693)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 正文批判 / プラトン / 中世写本 / 異読 / 写字生 / ギリシア語 / Pasquali / Lachmann

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Criticising the previous methodological assumption that a scribe always copies a single exemplar faithfully, and its implication that it is a task of textual criticism to identify ascendant texts in the extant manuscripts' lineage constructed in common errors and exclude inferior readings there, I follow a more realistic working hypothesis that medieval scribes in Europe intentionally both introduce a variant reading from another source and alter the exemplar's text. On this hypothesis, specifically, choosing some of Plato's works as samples, I have collated what was regarded as both later and descendant, and therefore inferior, manuscripts. As a result, I have shown that there ia a better reading in those later descendant manuscripts than in earlier ascendant manuscripts.

Free Research Field

西洋古典学