Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This chapter considers Gottfried Hermann’s outstanding achievement as textual critic and editor, primarily of Greek tragedy. Hermann’s work is related to that of two great English near-contemporaries, Richard Porson and Peter Elmsley. Through sharp observation of metrical and linguistic phenomena, and the great skill of all three at conjectural emendation, their work in many ways laid the foundations of modern text-critical work on Greek tragedy. They differed, however, in that Porson and Elmsley readily established rules of metrical and linguistic usage on the basis of ‘analogy’, that is common practice, whereas Hermann defended ‘anomaly’, that is deliberate variation from common practice, and insisted that any ‘rule’ had to be justified not only by practice but by some rationally comprehensible reason for the practice. The chapter exemplifies and compares the accomplishments of all three as conjectural emendators, and reconsiders the claim that Hermann was very negligent in the use of manuscripts.</jats:p>