Encode Letters and Songs in Modernized Texts

Encoding letters and songs is slightly different than remediating them, so if you are looking for information on remediating letters and songs, go toRemediate Letters and Songs.

Prior Reading

Introduction

Letters and songs are encoded the same way. Both are effectively interruptions to the unfolding dialogue, read (or sung) by a speaker. Both are encoded in the text node of the <sp> element. We indicate that the text is either a letter or a song by using the @type attribute on the smallest containing element (either an <lg> element for verse or a <p> element for prose).

Encode Letters

Sometimes a character will read a letter or other document onstage. We want to distinguish the text the character is reading from the surrounding dialogue.
Do not use quotation tags (i.e. <quote> , <q> , etc.) to tag text that a character is reading from a document. Read the documentation on Introduction to Quotations, Terms, Expressions, Glosses, Emphasis, and Foreign Languages if there are quotations in the letter.

Practice: Encode Verse Letters

To distinguish text as a verse letter, first wrap the text of the letter in an <lg> element. Add a @type attribute to the <lg> element with a value of "verseLetter". Wrap each line of verse in an <l> element.
If the verse letter contains groups of lines, wrap each line group in <lg> elements.
Example of a verse letter:
<sp>
  <speaker>Orlando</speaker>
  <lg type="verseLetter">
    <l>Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;</l>
    <l>And thou, thrice-crownèd Queen of Night, survey</l>
    <l>With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,</l>
    <l>Thy huntress’ name that my full life doth sway.</l>
    <l>O Rosalind! These trees shall be my books,</l>
    <l>And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character,</l>
    <l>That every eye which in this forest looks</l>
    <l>Shall see thy virtue witnessed everywhere.</l>
    <l>Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree</l>
    <l>The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.</l>
  </lg>
</sp>

Practice: Encode Prose Letters

To distinguish text as a prose letter, wrap the entire letter in the <p> element to indicate that the letter constitutes a prose or paragraph-like unit. Add a @type attribute with a value of "proseLetter".

Special Case: Encode Letters Interrupted by Prose

Letters will often be interrupted by interlineal commentary from the speaker. To link the fragments of the letter together, add @next and @prev attributes to either the <p> or <lg> elements, depending on whether the letter is in prose or verse. See also Encode Split Elements.
In the case of verse letters like the one below, add the <lg> element before every fragment of the letter to indicate it is part of a larger piece of verse:
<div>
  <sp who="#emdAYL_M_Rosalind">
    <speaker>Rosalind</speaker>
    <l>She Phoebes me. Mark how the tyrant writes.</l>
    <stage type="business">(Read)</stage>
    <lg type="verseLetter" xml:id="emdAYL_M_lg_1" next="#emdAYL_M_lg_2">
      <l>Art thou god to shepherd turned,</l>
      <l>That a maiden’s heart hath burned?</l>
    </lg>
    <l>Can a woman rail thus?</l>
  </sp>
  <sp who="#emdAYL_M_Silvius">
    <speaker>Silvius</speaker>
    <l>Call you this railing?</l>
  </sp>
  <sp who="#emdAYL_M_Rosalind">
    <speaker>Rosalind</speaker>
    <stage type="business">(Read)</stage>
    <lg type="verseLetter" xml:id="emdAYL_M_lg_2" prev="#emdAYL_M_lg_1" next="#emdAYL_M_lg_3">
      <l>Why, thy godhead laid apart,</l>
      <l>Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?</l>
    </lg>
    <l>Did you ever hear such railing?</l>
    <lg type="verseLetter" xml:id="emdAYL_M_lg_3" prev="#emdAYL_M_lg_2" next="#emdAYL_M_lg_4">
      <l>Whiles the eye of man did woo me,</l>
      <l>That could do no vengeance to me.</l>
    </lg>
  </sp>
</div>

Practice: Encode Songs

Wrap each group of lines that makes up the song in an <lg> element, regardless of line length or apparent meter. Add the @type attribute to the <lg> element wrapping the song and add the "song" value to identify the verse as a song.
Do not tag songs with quotation tags (i.e. <quote> , <q> , etc.) unless the character is quoting someone.
Example of a song:
<sp who="#emd2H4_M_Silence">
  <speaker>Silence</speaker>
  <stage type="delivery">Singing</stage>
  <lg type="song">
    <l>Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,</l>
    <l>And praise god for the merry year,</l>
    <l>When flesh is cheap and females dear,</l>
    <l>And lusty lads roam here and there</l>
    <l>So merrily,</l>
    <l>And ever among so merrily.</l>
  </lg>
</sp>

Special Case: Encode Songs Interrupted by Prose

You may encounter songs that are interrupted by commentary. To link the fragments of the song together, add @next and/or @prev attributes to the <lg> element wrapping the lines of the song.
The example below shows not only the use of the @next and @prev attributes to link the fragments of the song together, but also the use of the @part attribute and corresponding values on the <p> element to link the fragments of prose together:
<sp who="#emd2H4_M_Falstaff">
  <speaker>Falstaff</speaker>
  <stage type="delivery">Singing</stage>
  <lg type="song" xml:id="emd2H4_M_l_21" next="#emd2H4_M_l_22">
    <l>When Arthur first in court,</l>
  </lg>
  <p part="I">—empty the jordan!—</p>
  <lg type="song" xml:id="emd2H4_M_l_22" prev="#emd2H4_M_l_21">
    <l>And <lb type="tln" n="1063"/>was a worthy king</l>
  </lg>
  <p part="F">—how now, Mistress Doll?</p>
</sp>

Prosopography

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.

Nicole Vatcher

Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.) in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was women’s writing in the modernist period.

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 Letters and Songs in Modernized Texts
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.