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", "Dumbshow", and "Dumbshow 1". 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. The first paragraph in a dumbshow would be numbered Dumbshow 1.1. (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", "Dumbshow", or "Other". We may expand this list at anthologies’ 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 LEMDO’s controlled vocabulary for this attribute on the <div> element:
"title page"
"dedication"
"encomium"
"dramatis personae"
"prologue"
"main"
"dumbShow" (note camelCase spelling of the value)

Use Cases and Examples

Text and/or Described Action 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 1 if you have several prologues.
<div type="prologue" n="Prologue" xml:id="emdRho_M_pr1">
  <head>Prologue</head>
  <l>Candid spectators, you that are invited</l>
  <l>To see the lily and the rose united:</l>
  <!-- The rest of the prologue is encoded here. -->
</div>
The follow is an example of an abbreviated value for the @n attribute, with one of LEMDO’s allowed values for @type:
<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>
    <!-- More lines follow -->
  </sp>
</div>

Text and/or Described Action 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 1 if you have several.

Text and/or Described Action Between and Before and/or After Acts (or Scenes)

If you have a consistent structural unit that occurs between acts/scenes and before and/or after acts/scenes, treat all of them as between texts. This situation occurs in the manuscript play Jocasta, which has described action (a dumbshow) before each act.1 The example below shows the structural model for the whole five-act play:
<body>
  <div type="dumbShow" n="Dumbshow 1" xml:id="emdJoc_M_bt1">
    <head>The First Dumbshow</head>
    <p>First, before the beginning of the first act, <!-- … --> beginning the first act as followeth.</p>
    <!-- … -->
  </div>
  <div type="act" n="1" xml:id="emdJoc_M_a1">
    <head>Act 1</head>
    <div type="scene" n="1" xml:id="emdJoc_M_a1_s1">
      <head>1.1</head>
    </div>
    <!-- more scenes in Act 1 -->
  </div>
  <div type="dumbShow" n="Dumbshow 2" xml:id="emdJoc_M_bt2">
    <head>The Second Dumbshow</head>
    <p><!-- Dumbshow text here --></p>
  </div>
  <div type="act" n="2" xml:id="emdJoc_M_a2">
    <head>Act 2</head>
    <div type="scene" n="1" xml:id="emdJoc_M_a2_s1">
      <head>2.1</head>
    </div>
    <!-- more scenes in Act 2 -->
  </div>
  <!-- Third Dumbshow in its own div -->
  <!-- Act 3 div with child scene divs -->
  <!-- Fourth Dumbshow in its own div -->
  <!-- Act 4 div with child scene divs -->
  <!-- Fifth Dumbshow in its own div -->
  <!-- Act 5 div with child scene divs -->
</body>

Text and Described Action After the Last Act (or Scene)

Anything that appears after the final act/scene and functions as an epilogue should be wrapped in its own <div> element, which is given an xml:id beginning with "_ps" (for post). These are numbered consecutively from 1 if you have several epilogues.2 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 LEMDO’s 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. <!-- Rest of the epilogue --></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>
      <!-- The Chorus continues -->
    </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 generate a citation using the xml:id.
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>
      <l>O for a muse of fire, that would ascend</l>
      <l>The brightest heaven of invention,</l>
      <!-- The rest of the speech -->
    </sp>
  </div>
  <div type="scene" n="1" xml:id="emdH5_FM_a1_s1"><!-- Scene 1 is encoded here --></div>
  <!-- The rest of Act 1 is encoded here. -->
</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>
    <l>O for a muse of fire, that would ascend</l>
    <l>The brightest heaven of invention,</l>
  </sp>
</div>

Other Resources

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.

Notes

1.Note that we are choosing with this example not to treat the dumbshow as stage directions. We use the special @type value of "dumbShow" on the <div> element in order to make these longer dumbshows findable alongside stage directions.↑
2.You might have more than one epilogue in cases where the play has different epilogues for different audiences.↑

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.

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
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.