the timboucher experience

I found an interesting term, “urtext” used in an article about storytelling:

We are used to an ‘urtext’ model of literature: there is one original and ideal model for the story somewhere, recorded in words or whatever. Performances may attempt to interpret that model, but don’t change it essentially.

But this kind of thinking doesn’t or shouldn’t apply to the oral tale, because it’s really a bird in flight, not a stuffed one. In other words, part of the meaning and sense of the story is situational. It’s what the teller and her/his listeners add to it that makes it live.

This relates very directly to what I’m working on right now in my book, but is posed in sort of the opposite direction. My writing about “version control” of stories is essentially about how social institutions will seek to implement and maintain an “urtext.”

There’s not much information about the term online, but here’s something about “urtext editions.”

The term “Urtext” is first found in the writings of Herder and Goethe, where it is used to describe the original version of a text such as a novel that was later translated into other languages.

Generally, it seems to be used in relation to urtext editions of music compositions, which purport to show the work as the author originally intended it. This definitely applies to the modern study of religion, I think. Especially if you look at things like the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which some people believe to show the actual sayings of Jesus in a more pure form.

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