Literary Divisions in Modernized Texts: Acts, Scenes, and Speeches

Rationale

The largest countable literary divisions of the modernized text of a play are acts (or scenes, in plays that do not have acts). The smallest countable stable units in the digital edition of your modernized text are speeches. Each one is given a unique @xml:id that makes it countable, citable, and linkable. Lines are not considered to be stable countable units in digital editions because prose lines will change length depending on the device (computer screen or mobile device), the sizing of the browser window, and the display font.
Note that our print series, LEMDO Hornbooks, also takes speeches as the smallest countable units.
All performed text (spoken text and described action) belong in the <body> element of your modernized text. Choruses, prologues, inductions, dumbshows, and comparable performed material are countable literary divisions. Dedications, addresses to the reader, and comparable non-performed text belong in the <front> element (if they included at all).1

Practice

In practice, we number units in a digital edition by wrapping them in the appropriate parent element for the literary division ( <div> or <sp> ) and adding an @xml:id attribute with a unique value. Our processing turns the values into clickable, citable, and linkable numbers that display in the left margin of our digital editions.
The following table gives the pattern for constructing the values of @xml:id attributes on literary divisions. The value will always begin with emdABBR_M, where ABBR is the LEMDO abbreviation for the play (or emdABBR_FM or emdABBR_QM).

Patterns for Constructing Values
Division Pattern Further Documentation
Acts Ends with _a1, _a2, _a3, and so on (where a1 is Act 1). Number Acts and Scenes.
Scenes Ends with _a1_s1, _a1_s2, and so on (where a1 is Act 1 and s1 is Scene 1). Number Acts and Scenes.
Running scenes Ends with _s1, _s2, and so on (where s1 is Scene 1). Number Acts and Scenes.
Speeches in plays without act or scene divisions (e.g., interludes, occasional drama, and dialogic non-dramatic texts) Ends with _sp1, _sp2, and so on (where sp1 is Speech 1). Encode Speakers in Modernized Texts and Number Speeches.
Speeches in Running Scenes Ends with _s1_sp1, _s1_sp2, _s2_sp1, and so on (where s1 is Scene 1 and sp1 is Speech 1).
Speeches in Scenes in Acts Ends with _a1_s1_sp1, _a1_s1_sp2, _a1_s2_sp1, and so on (where a1 is Act 1, s1 is Scene 1, and sp1 is Speech 1).
Preliminary Performed Text Ends with the pattern _pr1, _pr2, and so on (where pr1 is the first piece of preliminary performed text). Text and/or Described Action Before an Act (or Scene)
Intermediary Performed Text Ends with the pattern _bt1, _bt2, and so on (where bt1 is the first piece of intermediary performed text). Text and/or Described Action Between Acts (or Scenes)
Postliminal Performed Text Ends with the pattern _ps1, _ps2, and so on (where ps1 is the first piece of postliminal performed text). Text and Described Action After the Last Act (or Scene)

Further Reading

In addition to the documentation linked in the final column of the table above, we recommend reading:

Notes

1.There is usually no need to include paratext in your edition of a play. All of the paratexts from the Early Modern Dramatic Paratexts project are being added to LEMDO as a standalone anthology and as components of editions. DRE and NISE editions will include EMDP files as a matter of course. Other anthologies may choose to include EMDP files.↑

Prosopography

Chloe Mee

Chloe Mee (she/her) worked as a research assistant with the LEMDO team over several periods from 2022 to 2025. She graduated from the University of Victoria in 2025 with a BA (Hons with distinction) in English. She will be studying at the University of British Columbia to complete her MA in English. Chloe collaborated with the LEMDO team on a VKURA internship in summer 2022, mainly focusing on Hamlet quartos. Following her internship, she also worked as a research assistant in 2022–23 and 2025.

Isabella Seales

Isabella Seales is a fourth year undergraduate completing her Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Victoria. She has a special interest in Renaissance and Metaphysical Literature. She is assisting Dr. Jenstad with the MoEML Mayoral Shows anthology as part of the Undergraduate Student Research Award program.

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.

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.

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 Literary Divisions in Modernized Texts: Acts, Scenes, and Speeches
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.