The Renan Source Facsimile Edition (EF) aims to present, for the first time, a digital reproduction in facsimile of the corpus of Renan’s writing, including his manuscripts, his scattered notes, the first editions of his works, his private library, and the relevant biographical documents. Through gathering together in this way the primary sources for the study of the work and life of Renan and for the interpretation of his texts, Renan Source aims to assemble and to associate with one another, in virtual form, all the various Renan manuscript collections, which are presently scattered around the world in various archives but which would thereby be drawn together into a single centre of study and research.
The edition will afford researchers access to sources both published and unpublished but will also allow them to undertake new studies aimed at reconstructing the genesis of Renan’s works, or at analyzing the development of his thought through the study of his manuscripts, as per the methods developed by genetic criticism.
High-resolution colour facsimiles are made available to the reader. The reader can browse through these facsimiles, enlarge or otherwise improve their images with the aid of a multi-function zoom facility, print them out or download them. The edition is based on a system of digital classification which ensures a specific and permanent online address for every single one of its pages. This new system of classification – to which there is owed, in many instances, the re-establishment of the proper ordering of certain manuscripts which had hitherto been wrongly classified, or the correction of errors or gaps in said manuscripts’ numbering – retains, nevertheless, a link with the entirety of other classifications of Renan’s manuscripts conserved in the various other existing archives. A table of concordances is also provided so as to ensure a total compatibility between the various classifications and allow the original manuscript to be in each case immediately located.
The rigour and precision of Renan Source’s Facsimile Edition thus ensures that it is a digital edition perfectly suitable for being cited and otherwise employed in work produced at university level.