A searchable database of EJ's oeuvre? John King asked us for ideas about what features to add to the List. A searchable database of past postings was one of the replies. Indeed a good idea, particularly of interest to new List members who want to find out what has been discussed before they joined. I would like to add a suggestion which is rather a daydream in the face of hard facts like Copyright and Too Much Work. If someone or some people took their scanners and put some or all of EJ's works on them and converted them into text documents (which are searchable with the "find" command) anyone wanting to discuss, say, EJ's concept of the titans could have all relevant passages at his fingertips and be capable of genuinely informed arguments. But since there is not only virtual reality but also real reality the latter will take its course on a different line. Some Forschungsguppe at some Germanistisches Seminar will take over and during the next thirty years will be publishing one weighty and costly volume of the Kritische Gesamtausgabe a long time after the other, with the general index to follow later in several supplementary volumes...
Günter Rebing
