Urtext

Quick meaning: Urtext is a noun meaning A primitive, seminal, or prototypical example of an artistic genre or the basis of an ideological movement.

Meaning

A primitive, seminal, or prototypical example of an artistic genre or the basis of an ideological movement.

More Meanings

1. (music, linguistics, anthropology) The original version of a piece of music or text, often as created by the composer or writer.

Example Sentences

The ur-text of this trope in recent cultural history is the 2000 Japanese cult-classic film Battle Royale[…].

The Weekly Standard ran an interminable series of essays lauding manliness and lamenting its demise at the hands of liberalism. Perhaps the Ur-text of this movement was a 2003 Jay Nordlinger op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

The recensional variation found in some tractates suggests the possibility that at an early stage of the – oral (?) – transmission there was no urtext, or that passages not stemming from the urtext entered into the text at this time.

Paramount Television also produced the 2016 Vanessa Hudgens showcase Grease: Live for Fox, which had good ratings, was a critical success, and was the most exposure Jessie J had had in years. So it seems like this Ur-text of American horny teendom is in good hands.

Word Forms

• urtexts
• urtexte
• ur-text
• Ur-text

Synonyms for urtext

Depending on context, synonyms include original, manuscript.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include archetype, ur-type, artotype, archaistic, hyparchetype, paleoart.

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