LEMDO: Number Prologues, Epilogues, and Intra-texts

Number Prologues, Epilogues, and Intra-texts

Note: For plays that are divided into scenes only, read scene for act in this particular piece of documentation.

¶ Rationale

Given the variety of texts that appear in playbooks, LEMDO gives you latitude in deciding what belongs in an act and what belongs before, between, or after acts. We also give you latitude in naming these components. Discuss your editorial rationale with your anthology lead.

¶ Practice

Each of these intertextual and paratextual units needs to be wrapped in a


                                          <div>

element. The


                                          <div>

element requires the following attributes:

@n

: You control the value on this attribute. Sample values include: "Interlude", "Interlude 1", "Preface", "Preface 1", "Preface 2", "Speech at court", "Induction", "Chorus", "Prologue" ", Epilogue". Whatever value you give the

@n

attribute will appear in generated citations in digital outputs; the value "Pro" would result in the first speech in the Prologue being numbered Pro.1 (LEMDO’s processing adds the period between the value and the speech number). Consult with your anthology lead about the appropriate name for the unit, in case the anthology is imposing its own standard vocabulary for these types of texts. (Note that LEMDO is currently expecting

@n

values of "Prologue", "Epilogue", "Chorus", or "Other". We may expand this list at anthologiesʼ request.)


                                             @xml:id

: The value of the


                                             @xml:id

attribute must include the xml:id of the file and any parent


                                                <div>

. It will always begin with the name of the file: emdFV_M_, for example.

You may also add an optional


                                       @type

attribute to the


                                          <div>

element. If you do add


                                       @type

, the value of


                                       @type

must be in LEMDOʼs controlled vocabulary for this attribute on the


                                          <div>

element:

title page

dedication

encomium

dramatis personae

prologue

main

¶ Use Cases and Examples

¶ Text Before an Act (or Scene)

For counting and processing purposes, anything that appears before the first act of the play is wrapped in a


                                             <div>

element, which is given an xml:id beginning with _pr (for preliminary or preceding). These are numbered consecutively from one if you have more than one.

<div type="prologue" n="Prologue" xml:id="emdRho_M_pr1">
  <head>Prologue</head>
  <lg>
    <l>Candid spectators, you that are invited</l>
    <l>To see the lily and the rose united:</l>
    
  </lg>
</div>

<div type="prologue" n="Pro" xml:id="emdSel_M_pr1">
  <head>Prologue</head>
  <stage type="entrance">Enter Prologue.</stage>
  <sp who="#emdSel_M_Prologue" xml:id="emdSel_M_pr1_sp1">
    <speaker>Prologue</speaker>
    <l>No feignèd toy nor forgèd tragedy,</l>
    
  </sp>
</div>

¶ Text Between Acts (or Scenes)

Anything that appears between acts is wrapped in a


                                             <div>

element, which is given an xml:id beginning with _bt (for between). These are numbered consecutively from one if you have more than one.

¶ Text After the Last Act (or Scene)

Anything that appears after the final act is wrapped in a


                                             <div>

element, which is given an xml:id beginning with _ps (for post). These are numbered consecutively from one if you have more than one. Use the


                                             <head>

element to name this part of the play according to your preferred terminology. Note that the value of the


                                          @type

attribute on the


                                             <div>

element comes from LEMDOʼs controlled vocabulary (created in consultation with DRE). The value of the

@n

attribute will be used to create the content of any parenthetical citations to this part of the play.

<div type="epilogue" n="Epilogue" xml:id="emdAYL_M_ps1">
  <head>Epilogue</head>
  <sp who="#emdAYL_M_Rosalind" xml:id="emdAYL_M_ps1_sp1">
    <speaker>Rosalind</speaker>
    <p>It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. </p>
  </sp>
</div>

¶ Choruses

Choruses are a special case. Nodding to longstanding editorial tradition (and in some cases the evidence of the early editions themselves), LEMDO allows you to place a chorus either between acts or at the beginning of an act.

In this first example, the editor treats the opening chorus of Romeo and Juliet as a prologue, spoken by the character Chorus, and gives the chorus the heading Prologue.

<div type="prologue" n="Prologue" xml:id="emdRom_Q2M_pr1">
  <head>The Prologue.</head>
  <sp who="#emdRom_Q2M_Chorus">
    <speaker>Chorus</speaker>
    <stage type="entrance optional"> Enter Chorus.</stage>
    <lg>
      <l>Two households, both alike in dignity,</l>
      
    </lg>
  </sp>
</div>

How another editor would cite this:

(Prologue.1)

If you want to cite a particular line in the prologue, add anchors to the prologue and point to the anchors using the


                                             <ptr>

element. For the digital edition, LEMDO will create a direct link to the first anchor. For the print edition, LEMDO will calculate and add line numbers.

In this second example, the editor treats the opening chorus of Henry V as the first scene of Act 1. Which choice you make as editor depends on how much you choose to follow the early editions and what argument you want to make about the relationship between the chorus and the act that follows (i.e., is the chorus preliminary to the act or is the chorus an integral part of the act?)

<div type="act" n="1" xml:id="emdH5_FM_a1">
  <div type="scene" n="0" xml:id="emdH5_FM_a1_s0">
    <stage type="entrance">Enter Chorus as Prologue.</stage>
    <sp who="#emdH5_FM_Chorus">
      <speaker>Chorus</speaker>
      <lg>
        <l>O for a muse of fire, that would ascend</l>
        <l>The brightest heaven of invention,</l>
        
      </lg>
    </sp>
  </div>
  <div type="scene" n="1" xml:id="emdH5_FM_a1_s1"></div>
  
</div>

However, the editor could equally well treat the opening chorus of Henry V as preceding Act 1:

<div type="prologue" n="Prologue" xml:id="emdH5_FM_pr1">
  <head>Prologue</head>
  <stage type="entrance">Enter Chorus as Prologue.</stage>
  <sp who="#emdH5_FM_Chorus">
    <speaker>Chorus</speaker>
    <lg>
      <l>O for a muse of fire, that would ascend</l>
      <l>The brightest heaven of invention,</l>
    </lg>
  </sp>
</div>

¶ Further Reading

Chapter 1, Matters of Definition in Schneider.

The Early Modern Dramatic Paratexts project, edited by Sonia Massai and Heidi Craig. We have adopted our project vocabulary from Massai and Craig’s taxonomy of paratexts.

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.

Martin Holmes

Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVicʼs 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

Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.

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 womenʼs 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.

Bibliography

Schneider, Brian W. The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama “Whining” Prologues and “Armed” Epilogues. London and New York: Routledge, 2011.

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	Number Prologues, Epilogues, and Intra-texts
Type of text	Documentation
Short title
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.