The Alexanderlied is handed down in three different Fassungen, ‘versions’, that share a common nucleus but diverge from one another substantially enough that they can be
considered independent rewritings of the lost original. Although each version can have value in itself as a specific historical witness, the synoptic presentation of the
single editions is an effective strategy to observe the relationship between the individual versions and attempt to gain an understanding of the various instances of the
transmission process. However, given the several discrepancies among the texts, the parallel alignment with line-by-line linking proved impossible to implement. For this
reason, V, S and B were divided into textual units, which were identified as building blocks of the plot in all the three versions and consequently used as the basis for
alignment and comparison.
In the analogic paradigm of the printed page, synoptic editions are often difficult to read and manage, whereas the hypertextual display has the potential to fix these
flaws through multiple visualization. We present here a TEI-XML synoptic digital partial edition of the three versions: so far, only the common textual nucleus has been
annotated, starting from the taming of Bucephalus and ending with the battle on Euphrates (V 235-1479, S 269-1583, B 531-1519). It is based on a breakdown of the three
redactions into the textual units, thanks to <anchor> elements as delimiters. The textual units are grouped into <span> elements in a stand-off file and connected among
each other thanks to the attribute @corresp, which provides the linking among witnesses.
To build the web page, the XML data were transformed into HTML thanks to XSLT and Saxon, with the addition of JavaScript for user interaction with the page (credits:
Frank Kröber). V, S and B are displayed in parallel columns and, additionally, thanks to a drop-down menu, the user can open a list of all the textual units in each
text. By clicking on the textual unit of interest, the user is redirected to the corresponding portion of text thanks to automatic scrolling and see the same unit
become highlighted in the other texts for comparison.
The digital synoptic edition prototype of the three versions is the outcome of Giulia D’Agostino’s doctoral project (University of Verona) and Frank Kröber’s web
development, under the supervision of Prof. Maria Adele Cipolla (University of Verona).
Here you can access the prototype of the synoptic edition: https://dh.dlls.univr.it/dse/dal-sinottica/.