Monica Berti, “Assembling Bricks in the Toy Box: Quotations and Text Re-use Detection of Lost Works”: eTraces Talks, Universität Leipzig – Raum 0-18, Johannisgasse 26, June 26, 2012, 9:00 am
The aim of this talk is to present characteristics and components of quotations and re-uses of ancient texts, in order to define a model applicable to other text corpora. Classical sources offer a great variety of quotations and re-uses of both preserved and lost works, covering many forms of excerpting, transforming, and re-adapting texts. Quotations of lost works are very helpful in defining strategies and tools for recovering hidden texts, being therefore suitable for modern collections and incomplete text-reuse detection. As with a Lego toy storage box, whose goal is to collect bricks of different size and colour that can be assembled and interlocked in many ways, detecting quotations and text-reuses means gathering fragments and traces of original texts that are scattered in many different contexts, assembling them in multiple forms for reconstructing our cultural heritage and making it available in digital libraries.
