Assignment 3

Note: This is a draft of the assignment as of 17 April 2009. Revisions may be made until this message disappears.

  1. Goal
  2. Technical Component
  3. Encoding the Text
  4. Grading Criteria

Goal

For this assignment you will produce an XML document which will form a contribution to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Poems Project.

You will work from three sources:

  1. Digitised copies of pages from the Chronicle manuscripts:
  2. A modern edited text of the poem.
  3. A translation of the poem into Modern English, available here. You may also wish to compare the Old English text to the Modern English translation using the Glossary for The Death of Edgar.

Your aim will be to take the poem known as The Death of Edgar and mark up the text using xml to create a file which contains explicit information useful for the study of the text by students and scholars. As a prelude to starting on this assignment, you should read the short theoretical introduction Encoding the Literary Text.

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Technical Component

Your document file should be called DeathEdgar.xml. It must follow the format and conventions defined by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). These are outlined in the document Basic TEI.

The valid elements and attributes used for the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Poems Project will be a subset of those defined by the TEI. This subset will be called the Chronicle Schema (click the link for a convenient outline of the valid elements and attributes in the schema).

Where possible, you must stick to the named elements and attributes in the Chronicle Schema. However, part of the purpose of this assignment is to discover inadequacies in the schema and to explore ways to customise it. Should you find it necessary to invent your own customised features, you must document them in comments inside the <teiHeader> section of your document.

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Encoding the Text

In marking up the text, you should proceed according to the following steps:

  1. Research the historical context of the poem, which occurs in the 975 entry of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The Wikipedia article on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle can serve as a starting point. You should also read Michael Swanton's introduction and translation to the Chronicle. This is availbale on the WebCT siteas "Extracts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (you can also find the paper version in many bookstores). You may also find useful Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe’s chapter on "Poems of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" (available through the WebCT site). Note that this, like the other readings by O'Keeffe, is from her book Visible Song. Your research does not need to be exhaustive; you just need to know enough context to feel comfortable proceeding to step 2.
  2. Choose to focus on one of the following aspects of the poem.

    · Linguistic features
    · Poetic and/or rhetorical features
    · Historical relevance (i.e. information useful for the study of the poem from an historical perspective)
    · Manuscript Variation
    · Manuscript context (e.g. surrounding text, page layout, manuscript condition, scribal features, punctuation)
    · Editorial interventions (e.g. emendation, translation, interpretation)

  3. Markup the text in xml following the guidelines of the TEI and the Chronicle Schema. Record a history of any major revisions you make or any new elements/attributes you add to the schema inside comments in the <teiHeader> section. That is, you should record the action you took and the date when you took it in this section. You should include one or two sentence justifications for any significant decisions you make. Think in particular about things you might want to might want to search for, sort, or turn on and off in the display.
  4. Compile a bibliography of any editions or secondary sources you have used. These should be marked up in xml using the bibliography elements described in the Chronicle Schema.
  5. Submit the DeathEdgar.xml file to me as an e-mail attachment.

The emphasis of this assignment is on the decisions you make in encoding the meanings of a text for future study, not on the presentation of the text over the web. However, I will attempt to construct an xslt stylesheet which can render your files in xhtml form. When that happens, you will be able to see them on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Poems Project web site.

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Grading Criteria

  • Your understanding of xml
  • Your ability to follow an xml schema
  • Your ability to make decisions in encoding the text based on a sophisticated understanding of textual meaning.

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