urtext

noun

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

   “Nearly coinciding with the publication of Thomas’s work was what, in many ways, stands as the ur-text of Turkish denialist “scholarship”: Esat Uras’s Tarihte Ermeniler ve Ermeni Meselesi. Uras, born Ahmed Essad, was an important figure in the CUP administration and was heavily involved in the planning and execution of the Armenian Genocide as a high official in the “directorate for public security.””

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

   “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.”

2. The original version of a piece of music or text, often as created by the composer or writer.

   “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.”