LEMDO: Encode Quotation Marks

Encode Quotation Marks

The TEI definition of

<q>

says that it contains material which is distinguished from the surrounding text using quotation marks or a similar method, for any one of a variety of reasons.

LEMDO uses

<q>

as the default element for ambiguous cases and cases that do not fit in any of the other categories that allow us to demarcate words and phrases from surrounding text (


                                       <quote>


                                       <term>


                                       <gloss>

, or


                                       <mentioned>

). Tagging the material with

<q>

must be a last resort after considering all other elements LEMDO uses to tag quotations. At rendering time, we will wrap in quotation marks any material tagged with

<q>

We foresee six uses for the

<q>

element. If you encounter other passages that defy encoding with


                                       <quote>


                                       <term>


                                       <soCalled>


                                       <gloss>

, or


                                       <mentioned>

, please write to lemdo@uvic.ca for advice.

The six uses are:

Quotations within quotations.

Imagined speech.

Prompts.

Quoting with variation.

Parts of words or letters.

Remediated texts where LEMDO has inherited quotation marks from a file first published in a legacy anthology; we mention this use case here mainly so that new editors do not follow the examples in remediated texts.

Examples

Quotations Within Quotations

For quotations within quotations, use the

<q>

element for the internal quotation.

Follow this pattern:

<note type="commentary">


<quote>Quotation <q>quotation within quotation</q> quotation</quote>

</note>

While the TEI does allow for


                                             <quote>

to be a child element of


                                             <quote>

, LEMDO has decided to disallow


                                             <quote>

as a child of


                                             <quote>

elements. Our rationale is that we do not know the reason for the quotation marks in the material we are quoting. Use the

<q>

element to indicate that the quoted material has material inside it that is wrapped in quotation marks for an unknown reason (even if you can work out the reason).

You can nest

<q>

within

<q>

(i.e.,

<q>

can be a child of

<q>

) as many times as necessary, to encode quotations within quotations within quotations. At rendering time, we will alternate double and single quotation marks, beginning with double. Quotations within quotations are most likely to occur in critical paratexts and apparatus, where you are quoting other sources. Generally, you will not use

<q>

for any other purpose in your critical paratexts and apparatus.

<note type="commentary">

Some editors agree with Capell in punctuating this passage as follows, in order to clarify the meaning: <quote>Send to his brother: <q>Fetch that gallant hither</q>
</quote> (Capell) </note>

A note on AYL by David Bevington.

Imagined Speech

Sometimes, one character will project what someone might have said (but didn’t say) or tell a character what not to say.

O most gentle Jupiter, what tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried <q>Have patience, good people!</q>

(from AYL) Rosalind is criticizing Celia (reimagined as Jupiter) for not asking her listeners to have patience. It’s imagined speech rather than quoted speech.

A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say, <q>Wit, whither wilt?</q>

(from AYL) Another example of imagined speech as opposed to quoted speech.

Prompts

Sometimes, one character will feed a word or line to another character.

<note type="commentary">

Cry <q>Holla</q> to thy tongue </note>

(from AYL).

but say with me, <q>I love Aliena</q>

(from AYL).

Say <q>a day</q> without the <q>ever</q>

(from AYL).

Quoting with Variation for Non-Rhetorical Purpose

It is common in witty dialogue for one character to quote another, using the same word(s) with a different meaning (antanaclasis) or using the same root in a different grammatical case (adnominatio). Normally, we do not tag such repetitions. But in some cases, when a character uses phrasing that foregrounds the act of quoting (with or without incremental variation), we add the

<q>

tag to indicate the self-conscious nature of the repetition.

<note type="commentary">

For my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that <q>keeping</q> for a gentleman of my birth that differs not from the stalling of an ox? </note>

From AYL. The word keeping plays on unkept but is not a direction quotation.

<note type="commentary">


<quote>MISTRESS PAGE: He would never have boarded me in this fury. MISTRESS FORD: <q>Boarding</q>, call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him above deck.</quote>

</note>

A note on Oth by Jessica Slights. The phrase call you it requires us to use the

<q>

element around boarding.

Parts of Words or Characters

<note type="commentary">

Note that here and throughout è indicates that the final <q>ed</q> must be pronounced in order for a line of verse to maintain its regular metrical pattern </note>

A note on Oth by Jessica Slights.

<note type="commentary">

A misreading seems likely given the ease with which both <q>t</q>/<q>c</q> and <q>m</q>/<q>n</q> might be mistaken for each other </note>

A note on Oth by Jessica Slights.

<note type="commentary">

as the letter <q>i</q> was often substituted for the letter <q>j</q> before spelling became regularized, either word might have started with the uppercase <q>I</q>

</note>

A note on Oth by Jessica Slights.

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 Quotation Marks
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.