TEI P 5 provides special modules to handle the markup of primary sources, but they don't suffice to markup genetic processes. Exactly these processes are however in the focus of a substantial part of continental text theory and many modern editions include genetic aspects or they focus entirely on them. Supplementing the existing TEI guidelines to support the markup of genetic editions is therefore a general acknowledged need. My talk will provide a building block for this task. It will analyse a set of genetic editions in German language under the perspective how the genetic process is modelled, how the source document is presented as an integral whole but at the same time how the genesis of a work, which sometimes only includes some elements of a source document, is expressed. Genetic editions of the following authors will be analyzed: Paul Celan, Friedrich Hölderlin, Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, Georg Trakl. These editions also reflect different stages in the development of genetic editions using quite different systems of notation.

Genetic editions trying to render the process how a work of art was created have a comparably short history. Therefore one question to be discussed is what aspects are determined by the underlying theories of text and creation and whether it is possible to describe a common set of features shared by all editions, a kind of core model. In the end the talk will discuss what is already in the TEI guidelines to markup this model, even if it is scattered over different modules, and what needs to be developed in form of a specialized schema.

My talk will concentrate on editions in German language in the hope to be complemented by similar contributions from other scholarly communities. Hopefully this will be a solid foundation for a generic model how to express genetic editions.