Ecdotics is the academic field studying the way texts are (to be) edited. This branch of scholarship focuses especially on how historic texts are edited critically. It is closely related to textual criticism in general. The term is rarely used in English (there is no entry in the Oxford English Dictionary), but common in French and Italian.
The word is derived from Greek ἐκ-δίδωμι 'to give out' in many senses, including 'to edit a text (etc.)'. In French the term is already in use in the 19th century and is often used as a synonym to or a subset of textual criticism, e.g. in Henry Quentin (1926).
References
– École nationale des chartes. 2001–2002. Conseils pour l'édition des textes médiévaux. Paris: Éditions du CTHS. Volumes: Conseils généraux, coord. Olivier Guyotjeannin et Françoise Vieillard, 2001; Actes et documents d'archives, coord. Olivier Guyotjeannin, 2001; Textes littéraires, coord. Pascale Bourgain et Françoise Vieillard, 2002.
– Contini, Gianfranco. 1986. Breviario di ecdotica. Torino: Einaudi.
– Quentin, Henry. 1926. Essais de critique textuelle (ecdotique). Paris: A. Picard.
– Segre, Cesare. 1991. Due lezioni di ecdotica. Pisa: Scuola normale superiore.
In other languages
DE: Ekdotik
FR: ecdotique
IT: ecdotica
PR