LEMDO: Encode Stage Directions in Modernized Texts

Encode Stage Directions in Modernized Texts

Prior Reading

Collate Stage Directions

Lineation in Modernized Texts

Rationale

LEMDO encodes stage directions using the


                                          <stage>

element so that they can be analyzed and styled separately from spoken text. This documentation will explain how to encode the element structure for stage directions in modernized texts, including tagging supplied stage directions, and will direct you to further readings about adding xml:ids and adding the required


                                       @type

attribute to stage directions.

Practice: Encode Stage Directions in the XML Hierarchy

To encode a stage direction, simply wrap the text in a


                                          <stage>

element. The


                                          <stage>

element is allowed in many places in the XML hierarchy of modernized texts. It is up to you to determine what placement is appropriate for each stage direction in your modernized text based on your anthology’s style guidelines and LEMDO’s encoding practice. LEMDO allows for the following placement scenarios:

Placed as a Child Of	Scenario	Example
The `<div>` element for the containing scene	Your stage direction is meant to be before, between, or after speeches	An entrance at the beginning of a scene
The `<sp>` element	Your stage direction is meant to be part of a speech, but not in-dialogue	A stage direction between blank verse lines
The `<lg>` element	Your stage direction is between lines of a song, sonnet, or other literary form that is more than blank verse	A stage direction between stanzas of a song
The `<l>` or `<p>` elements	Your stage direction is in-dialogue	An aside in a verse speech

Punctuation in Stage Directions

In accordance with the DRE style guidelines, we recommend that you use terminal punctuation in all stage directions except for those that are in-dialogue.

For example:

<sp>
 <speaker>Labesha</speaker>
 In a blanket?
</sp> <stage type="exit">Exit.</stage> <sp who="#emdAHDM_M_Moren" xml:id="emdAHDM_M_s5_sp7">
 <speaker>Moren</speaker>
 Nay, but Besha—
</sp>

<sp>
<speaker>Lemot</speaker>
He is marvellous welcome. <stage type="delivery">To Blanvel</stage> I shall be exceeding proud of your acquaintance.
</sp>

Supplied Stage Directions

It is conventional for editors to add stage directions to specify when characters enter, exit, and remain if the early stage directions are not entirely clear. The print convention has been to mark such supplied stage directions with square brackets. In LEMDO’s digital environment, we do not type square brackets into our modernized texts. For supplied stage directions, anthologies have two options:

Use the collation file (1) to capture differences between the modernized text and the earliest editions, and (2) to give your editorial predecessors credit where credit is due. (This option is the one adopted by DRE. LEMDO encourages other anthologies to follow DRE’s practice.)

Wrap the supplied stage direction in the


                                                <supplied>

element. The editor may also add a collation note. (This option is the one adopted by QME.)

At least one LEMDO anthology (DRE) has taken the textual critical position that because the entire modernized text is supplied (especially in the Anglo-American eclectic editing tradition and in recent efforts to try to reproduce a text or performance at a particular moment in its history even if one has to reconstruct it from witnesses that represent other points in its history). On the other hand, QME has chosen to wrap editorial stage directions that do not appear in the early modern printed texts.

LEMDO is agnostic on the questions of (1) what types of interpolations and clarifications an editor may add, (2) whether the editor needs to use markup to indicate supplied material, and (3) whether and how much the editor should collate. These decisions will be made at the anthology level. You will want to consult with your anthology lead.

Practice: Encode Supplied Material

If your anthology’s practice is to use markup to indicate supplied material in stage directions (as QME has chosen to do), wrap the supplied part of the stage direction in the


                                             <supplied>

element. Note that you may use the


                                             <supplied>

element in the modernized text only inside the


                                             <stage>

element. At rendering time, the supplied material will be wrapped in square brackets on the screen and in the print output.

You will want to collate your supplied material if the source is a prior editor (to give credit where credit is due). If you collate the stage direction, you will need to include the


                                             <supplied>

element in the lemma (the text node of the


                                             <lem>

element). See Practice: Encode Collated Stage Directions.

<stage type="entrance">Enter <supplied>Prince Edward</supplied>.</stage>

Collated Editorial Stage Directions

If your anthology’s practice is not to mark up supplied material, you will need to consult with your anthology lead about what to collate. In this case, do not add


                                             <supplied>

elements to your stage direction. Instead, use LEMDO’s collation protocols to indicate what the stage directions have been in earlier editions. It will be clear to the reader who looks at the collations what you have added.

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.

Kate LeBere

Project Manager, 2020–2021. Assistant Project Manager, 2019–2020. Textual Remediator and Encoder, 2019–2021. Kate LeBere completed her BA (Hons.) in History and English at the University of Victoria in 2020. During her degree she published papers in The Corvette (2018), The Albatross (2019), and PLVS VLTRA (2020) and presented at the English Undergraduate Conference (2019), Qualicum History Conference (2020), and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute’s Project Management in the Humanities Conference (2021). While her primary research focus was sixteenth and seventeenth century England, she completed her honours thesis on Soviet ballet during the Russian Cultural Revolution. She is currently a student at the University of British Columbia’s iSchool, working on her masters in library and information science.

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 Stage Directions 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.