Trends in Genetics
Volume 17, Issue 3, 1 March 2001, Pages 147-152
Journal home page for Trends in Genetics

Review
Manuscript evolution

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-9525(00)02210-1Get rights and content

Abstract

Frequently, letters, words and sentences are used in undergraduate textbooks and the popular press as an analogy for the coding, transfer and corruption of information in DNA. We discuss here how the converse can be exploited, by using programs designed for biological analysis of sequence evolution to uncover the relationships between different manuscript versions of a text. We point out similarities between the evolution of DNA and the evolution of texts.

Section snippets

Transcription

This is the first and most time-consuming stage. It requires access to the manuscript, ideally in its original form. Although texts are starting to become available in digitized form and thus over the web, this applies only to a tiny fraction at present. The process of digitization is slow and expensive, requiring sophisticated equipment if good resolution is to be preserved. Furthermore, making images of manuscripts available over the web also poses copyright problems, which are not yet fully

Genetic parallels

The analysis described above highlights the similarity between point mutations in sequences and textual evolution. However, other genetic processes also have parallels in manuscripts.

Refinements and limitations

There is much to be done in refining the application of phylogenetic analysis to manuscript traditions. An area of particular interest is the use of weightings for different kinds of change. Are some kinds of change – such as those that significantly alter the meaning of the text – more important than others? Should more weight be given to those changes? In a simple model, all kinds of change would be consistent with the same tree topology, and the topology should therefore be independent of

Acknowledgements

We thank the Leverhulme Trust, Churchill College, Cambridge and the Broodbank Fund for their support of this work.

References (21)

  • M. Connolly
  • C. de Hamel

    Medieval Craftsmen – Scribes and Illustrators

    (1992)
  • M. Weitzman

    The analysis of open traditions

    Studies in Bibliography

    (1985)
  • C. Moorman

    The Statistical Determination of Affiliation in the Landmark Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales

    (1993)
  • C. Flight

    A complete theoretical framework for stemmatic analysis

    Manuscripta

    (1994)
  • E. Wattel

    Clustering stemmatological trees

  • E. Wattel et al.

    Shock waves in text traditions

  • E. Wattel et al.

    Weighted formal support of a pedigree

  • H.D. Cameron

    The upside-down cladogram: problems in manuscript affiliation

  • R.D.M. Page et al.

    Molecular Evolution: A Phylogenetic Approach

    (1998)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (36)

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text