Commentary

In philology, a commentary is a line-by-line or even word-by-word explication usually attached to an edition of a text in the same or an accompanying volume. The cited article, Commentary (philology), says it may draw on methodologies of close reading and literary criticism, but that its primary purpose is to elucidate the language of the text and the specific culture that produced it, both of which may be foreign to the reader, and that it usually takes the form of footnotes, endnotes or separate text cross-referenced by line, paragraph or page. Its means include notes on textual criticism, syntax and semantics, and the analysis of rhetoric, literary tropes and style. Philosophical works the atlas records as commentaries are grouped under this entry.