Definition: Recension is part of the process known as textual criticism. In it scholars look through available manuscripts to determine which is the best or most trustworthy version.
Pronunciation: ri sen shen • (noun)
Examples:
Pisistratean recension refers to the supposition that in the second half of the sixth century B.C., under the tyrant Pisistratus, there was a recension of the Homeric epics and perhaps the other poems of the Epic Cycle connected with the start of the Panathenaic Festival. The Homeric recension would then have created the official version of the Homeric epics for performance perhaps at the first day of the event. See: "Performance and the Epic Cycle," by Jonathan S. Burgess; The Classical Journal, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Oct. - Nov., 2004), pp. 1-23.
