Complete Works refers to a collection of all the cultural works of a artist, writer, musician, group, etc. For example, Complete Works of Shakespeare is an edition containing all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. A Complete Works published edition of a text corpus is normally accompanied with additional information and critical apparatus. It may include notes, introduction, a biographical sketch, and may pay attention to textual variants.
Terminology
Complete works may be titled by a single word, "Works". "Collected works" is often treated as a synonym. A distinction began to be seen clearly in the second half of the 18th century.
The Latin language equivalent Opera Omnia is still used in English, for example, to refer to the works of Galen or Leonhard Euler. German usage distinguishes de:Gesamtwerk as a complete corpus, de:Gesamtausgabe for a published edition of the works, and Gesammelte Werke or collected works that may be selective in some way. A contrasting term is "selected works", which is a collection of works chosen according to some criterion, e.g., by prominence, or as a representative selection.
Courtesy-wikipedia
- Complete Works