Year: 2000
Type: article
Abstract: Whether they are transcriptions made for the moment, editions of epics and other kinds of folk poetry, or anthologies of folk litera-ture, texts are at the core of all folklore research. As researchers we depend on the texts that we generate, and that have been gen-erated by others before us, and yet the role of editing in folklore research is rarely discussed. Editing is more than the simple objec-tive transcription of an empirically real text. It is an interpretive process that produces the facts on which research is based. The editor of a folklore text selects from the source materials the rel-evant “facts ” to be used in creating the published text.1 This process of selection is a creative and interpretive act that gives a particular meaning to the facts. I use the term “creative ” quite consciously here, for the actions of the editor in making texts are like those of any other creative artist. Just as the work of a creative writer is the product of the imaginative efforts of that writer within the writ-
Author: David E. Gay
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4249210235