TEI by Example Module 4: Poetry Ron Van den Branden Edward Vanhoutte Melissa Terras Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC) Centre for Data, Culture and Society, University of Edinburgh, UK Centre for Digital Humanities (CDH), University College London, UK Centre for Computing in the Humanities (CCH), King’s College London, UK Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) , Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, Belgium
Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature Koningstraat 18 9000 Gent Belgium
ctb@kantl.be Edward Vanhoutte Melissa Terras Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) , Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, Belgium Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) , Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, Belgium Gent
Centre for Scholarly Editing and Document Studies (CTB) Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature Koningstraat 18 9000 Gent Belgium

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9 July 2010 TEI by Example. Edward Vanhoutte editor Ron Van den Branden editor Melissa Terras editor

Digitally born

TEI by Example offers a series of freely available online tutorials walking individuals through the different stages in marking up a document in TEI (Text Encoding Initiative). Besides a general introduction to text encoding, step-by-step tutorial modules provide example-based introductions to eight different aspects of electronic text markup for the humanities. Each tutorial module is accompanied with a dedicated examples section, illustrating actual TEI encoding practise with real-life examples. The theory of the tutorial modules can be tested in interactive tests and exercises.

 en-GB integrated examples in a single file
Lewis Carroll: The Mouse’s Tale

The following example is an excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s The Mouse’s Tale, a poem appearing in the third chapter of Alice in Wonderland. It is a concrete poem in which the lines consist of only a couple of words, laid out in such a way that they visualise the mouse’s winding tail:

A facsimile of The Mouse’s Tale.

For the encoder, this specific visual layout challenges the TEI’s orientation to logical structures. In the example, the visual lines are encoded as logical lines (l); the visual particularities (font size, indentation) are formalised as values of a rend attribute on each line. Of course, any value system is allowed for the rend attribute; it’s up to the processing layer to decide how to interpret these values and format them on the screen / in print.

Since version 2.0, the TEI Guidelines have added a sourceDoc element, that allows for a topographic transcription of the content of primary manuscripts, organised in visual units surface, zone, and line. See chapter 11. Representation of Primary Sources of the TEI Guidelines.

Alternatively, the lines could have been treated on a more logical level, spanning multiple physical lines. The line breaks then could have been encoded with lb elements, and specific visual characteristics as values for rend attributes on seg elements. Since the white space is quite significant, the special-purpose TEI element space could have been used as well.

"Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, 'Let us both go to law: I will prosecute you. — Come, I'll take no denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I've nothing to do.' Said the mouse to the cur, 'Such a trial, dear sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.' 'I'll be judge, I'll be jury,' Said cunning old Fury; 'I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.' " TBE-crafted example encoding of Lewis Carroll’s poem The Mouse’s Tale as it appeared in Alice in Wonderland (Carroll 1865). This encoding was based on the HTML encoding of this poem available at .
Blake, William. 1789. Songs of Innocence and of Experience. London: W Blake. Encoded and made available by the University of Virginia Library, Text Collection at . Browning, Robert. 1842. Dramatic Lyrics. London: Moxon. Carroll, Lewis. 1865. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. New York: D. Appleton and co. p. 37. Islam, Mubina. 2004. A Selection of Sonnets: electronic edition encoded in XML with a TEI DTD. Unpublished Master’s Dissertation, London: University College London. Shakespeare, William. 1978. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Edited by Alexander, Peter. London: Collins. Swinburne, Algernon Charles. 1924. Swinburne’s Collected Poetical Works. London: William Heinemann. p. 330–31.