LEMDO: Encode Character Lists, Actor Lists, and Cast Lists in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions

Encode Character Lists, Actor Lists, and Cast Lists in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions

Disambiguation

The


                                          <castList>

element is used only for character or cast lists that appear in early modern playbooks (manuscript or print). Do not add a character list to a semi-diplomatic transcription unless there is already a character list in the document. LEMDO does not use the


                                          <castList>

element for editorial character lists in modernized texts; instead, the editor will create a


                                          <listPerson>

in the


                                          <teiHeader>

of the modernized text. See Encode Character Lists in Modernized Texts.

There may be instances when a cast list appears on a title page. When that occurs, LEMDO encodes the cast lists differently than when they appear elsewhere in the text. See Special Case: Cast List on Title Page for more information.

Rationale

The print or manuscript character, actor, or cast list is part of the text that you are transcribing in a semi-diplomatic transcription. It contains important information for book and performance historians. The list either precedes the body of the play (as in the case of Rhodon and Iris) or follows it (as in the case of Timon of Athens in F1). We encode them so that we can answer research questions about early modern character and actor lists. In the future, we will be able to tag the names of actors and link them to further information.

LEMDO Definitions

In early modern playbooks, the terms actor and character are used more or less interchangeably. For documentation purposes, we will use these terms:

Term	Definition	Example(s)
character list	a list of characters in the play	Character lists appear at the end of Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, and The Winter’s Tale in the 1623 folio publication of Shakespeare’s plays. A character list that is effectively a doubling chart appears in the texts of Mucedorus.
actor list	a list of actors’ names	appears in the preliminary material in the 1623 folio
cast list	a list of characters plus the actor who played each character	The 1623 quarto text of The Duchess of Malfi includes the names of the characters and King’s Men actors.

Practice

LEMDO uses the


                                          <castList>

element for all three types of lists.

Placement: The


                                          <castList>

belongs in either the


                                          <front>

element if it precedes the spoken text of the play, or in the


                                          <back>

element if it follows the spoken text of the play. Where there are other preliminary or postliminal materials, encode the


                                          <castList>

where it appears in the sequence of paratexts in the copy you are transcribing.

Wrap the entire list in the


                                          <castList>

element. If there is a header (e.g., “Dramatis Personae” or “The Names of the Actors,” transcribe it accurately and wrap it in a


                                          <head>

element as the first child of


                                          <castList>

Encode the Basics

The basic model for encoding each character within the


                                          <castList>

element is as follows:

<castItem>
<role>Name of character</role>
<roleDesc>Description of role</roleDesc>
</castItem>

Encode Grouped Characters

If characters are grouped together (e.g., with a brace) so as to share a


                                          <roleDesc>

, use the


                                          <castGroup>

element to group two or more


                                          <castItem>

elements. The


                                          <roleDesc>

goes outside the


                                          <castItem>

elements. The basic model for encoding a character group is as follows:

<castGroup>
  <castItem>
    <role>Name of first character</role>
  </castItem>
  <castItem>
    <role>Name of second character</role>
  </castItem>
  <roleDesc>Shared descriptor</roleDesc>
</castGroup>

If you want to capture the mise-en-page and the length of the brace using CSS Flex, you will need to wrap an additional


                                          <castGroup>

element around your


                                          <castItem>

elements and add the


                                          <metamark>

element for the brace. The basic model for encoding a character group with the brace is as follows:

<castGroup>
  <castGroup>
    <castItem>Name of first character</castItem>
    <castItem>Name of second character</castItem>
  </castGroup>
  <metamark>}</metamark>
  <roleDesc>Shared descriptor</roleDesc>
</castGroup>

This encoding pattern gives you three cognate containers to style using CSS Flex: the child


                                          <castGroup>

element, its sibling


                                          <metamark>

element, and its sibling


                                          <roleDesc>

element. See Encode Inline Style Using CSS and CSS Flex in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions.

Optional: You may assign an xml:id to the


                                          <castItem>

element if you want to associate


                                          <sp>

elements with characters (using the


                                       @who

attribute and the xml:id you assigned to the


                                          <castItem>

Encode Actor Lists

To encode actors in an actor list, wrap each name in the following three elements:


                                          <castItem>


                                       <actor>

, and


                                          <persName>

. Add a


                                       @ref

attribute to


                                          <persName>

and point to an ID defined in the Prosopography (PROS1). The basic model for encoding an actor in an actor list is as follows:

<castItem>
  <actor>
    <persName ref="pros:ADAM9">John Adams</persName>
  </actor>
</castItem>

Encode Cast Lists

To encode cast lists that include the name of the role and the actor, combine the two approaches as follows, adding a


                                          <roleDesc>

element as necessary:

<castItem>
  <role>Name of character</role>
  <actor>
    <persName ref="pros:ADAM9">John Adams</persName>
  </actor>
</castItem>

<castItem>
  <role>Name of character</role>
  <roleDesc>Description of role</roleDesc>
  <actor>
    <persName ref="pros:ADAM9">John Adams</persName>
  </actor>
</castItem>

Example of a Character List

<castList>
  <head>Names of the Actors</head>
  <lb/>
  <castItem xml:id="emdDouai_Mac_duncan">
    <role>Duncan</role>
    <space dim="horizontal" unit="em" quantity="2"/>
    <roleDesc>King of Scotland</roleDesc>
  </castItem>
  <lb/>
  <castGroup style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;">
    <castGroup>
      <castItem xml:id="emdDouai_Mac_malcolm">
        <role>Malcolme</role>
      </castItem>
      <lb/>
      <castItem xml:id="emdDouai_Mac_donalbain">
        <role>Donalbaine</role>
      </castItem>
    </castGroup>
    <metamark style="transform: scaleY(3); transform-origin: center; margin: 0 1em;">}</metamark>
    <roleDesc>his sons</roleDesc>
  </castGroup>
  
</castList>

Prosopography

Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020 after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.

John Adams

Actor with the Queen’s Men. See John Adams (fl. 1576–1588).

Mahayla Galliford

Project manager, 2025-present; research assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. Mahayla continues her studies through UVic’s English MA program and her SSHRC-funded thesis project focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscripts, specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s dramatic entertainments, in collaboration with LEMDO.

Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020. He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Rylyn Christensen

Rylyn Christensen is an English major at the University of Victoria.

Tracey El Hajj

Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life. Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

Metadata

Authority title	Encode Character Lists, Actor Lists, and Cast Lists in Semi-Diplomatic Transcriptions
Type of text	Documentation
Publisher	University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series	Linked Early Modern Drama Online
Source	TEI Customization created by Martin Holmes, Joey Takeda, and Janelle Jenstad; documentation written by members of the LEMDO Team
Editorial declaration	n/a
Edition	Released with Linked Early Modern Drama Online 1.0
Encoding description	Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status	prgGenerated
Funder(s)	Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
License/availability	This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except in quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the documentation in the classroom.