LEMDO: Encode Literary Divisions (Acts, Scenes, and Speeches) in Transcriptions

Encode Literary Divisions (Acts, Scenes, and Speeches) in Transcriptions

Rationale

Most early witnesses (folios, quartos, and octavos) have few or inconsistent act and scene numbers. We do not impose act and scene divisions on witnesses that lack them. The semi-diplomatic transcription is meant to be a conservative documentary edition and is therefore not the place to make critical decisions about when scenes break.

However, when an early witness does have consistent act, scene, or act-scene divisions (mostly likely to occur after 1616), we do encode these divisions.

Practice: Inconsistent Act and Scene Headings

Transcribe the act and scene headings that do appear in the witness. Treat them not as literary divisions but as labels. Tag them with the


                                          <label>

element and the


                                       @type

attribute with the value "heading".

Depending on your anthology’s practice, you may use the self-closing


                                          <milestone>

element with the


                                       @unit

attribute and the value "act" or "scene "to indicate the beginning of the literary division. You may also add an

@n

attribute and a value consisting of a number. In the case of the first scene of the first act, place the


                                          <milestone>

element after the title of the play and before the act/scene heading. Use the


                                          <label>

element for the heading.

Examples

These examples contain some inline CSS styling. See section on Rendering below.

<label type="heading" rendition="rnd:italic rnd:center">Sc<g ref="lig:oe">oe</g>na Tertia.</label>

<label type="heading" rendition="rnd:italic rnd:center">The Prologue.</label>

Rendering

LEMDO does not have default styling for


                                          <label>

in part because there are so many places in which label-like things can appear but also because printers tend to exercise some creativity with labels. You almost always need to add CSS styling for labels, either in your TEI header (if the things you are tagging with


                                          <label>

are consistently styled across your document) or inline.

Practice: Witnesses with Consistent Act/Scene Headings

In cases where a witness does have consistent and inclusive act and/or scene boundaries, you will follow the same practice as above. Do not treat these cases any differently. Use


                                          <milestone>

elements (not divisions) and


                                          <label>

for the header.

Examples

<body>
  <figure type="horizontal-rule"/>
  <milestone unit="act" n="5"/>
  <label type="heading">A<g ref="lig:ct">ct</g>
    <g ref="lig:us">us</g> Quintus.</label>
  <figure type="horizontal-rule"/>
  
</body>

<body>
  <pb n="B1r"/>
  <figure type="ornament"/>
  <label type="heading">
    <lb/>RHODON <lb/>AND IRIS.</label>
  <figure type="horizontal-rule"/>
  <milestone unit="act" n="1"/>
  <milestone unit="scene" n="1"/>
  <lb/>
  <label type="heading">Act. 1. Scen. 1.</label>
  
</body>

Optional: Anteleptic Milestones

We do not add proleptic act and scene divisions to our semi-diplomatic transcriptions. Acts and scenes are an editorial imposition. Even now, they are subject to editorial emendation and differ from one edition to another. For example, the scenes often numbered 2.1 and 2.2 in editions of Romeo and Juliet are treated as one scene in the Oxford Shakespeare (and the Norton 1 and Norton 2 based thereon).

However, your anthology may choose to add anteleptic milestones to the semi-diplomatic transcription once a modernized text based on this copytext is stable. Doing so may facilitate future linking between the semi-diplomatic transcription and the modernized text based thereon.

In this case, the optional practice is to add


                                          <milestone>

elements at the points where the act and scene divisions open in your modernized text (i.e., the opening


                                          <div>

tag in your modernized text). Add a


                                       @resp

attribute to the


                                          <milestone>

element. The value of


                                       @resp

will be the pers: prefix plus your own xml:id. Add a


                                       @corresp

attribute that points to the modern document and the xml:id of the


                                          <div>

to which you want to point.

<body>
  <stage>Exeunt.</stage>
  <milestone unit="act" n="2" resp="pers:JENS1" corresp="doc:emdMV_M#emdMV_M_a2"/>
  <milestone unit="scene" n="1" resp="pers:JENS1" corresp="doc:emdMV_M#emdMV_M_a2_s1"/>
  <stage>Enter Morochus a tawnie Moore all in white, and three or foure followers accordingly, with Portia, Nerri<g ref="g:longS">s</g>
    <g ref="g:longS">s</g>a, and their traine.</stage>
  
</body>

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.

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 Literary Divisions (Acts, Scenes, and Speeches) in 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.