University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2015 The Practice and Benefit of Applying Digital Markup in Preserving Texts and Creating Digital Editions: A Poetical Analysis of a Blank- Verse Translation of Virgil's Aeneid William Dorner University of Central Florida Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Dorner, William, "The Practice and Benefit of Applying Digital Markup in Preserving Texts and Creating Digital Editions: A Poetical Analysis of a Blank-Verse Translation of Virgil's Aeneid" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 1421. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1421 THE PRACTICE AND BENEFIT OF APPLYING DIGITAL MARKUP IN PRESERVING TEXTS AND CREATING DIGITAL EDITIONS: A POETICAL ANALYSIS OF A BLANK-VERSE TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL'S AENEID by WILLIAM DORNER M.A., Rhetoric and Composition, University of Central Florida, 2010 B.A., Creative Writing, University of Central Florida, 2007 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Texts and Technology in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2015 Major Professor: Mark L. Kamrath © 2015 William Dorner ii ABSTRACT Numerous examples of the “digital scholarly edition” exist online, and the genre is thriving in terms of interdisciplinary interest as well as support granted by funding agencies. Some editions are dedicated to the collection and representation of the life’s work of a single author, others to mass digitization and preservation of centuries’ worth of texts. Very few of these examples, however, approach the task of in-text interpretation through visualization. This project describes an approach to digital representation and investigates its potential benefit to scholars of various disciplines. It presents both a digital edition as well as a framework of justification surrounding said edition. In addition to composing this document as an XML file, I have digitized a 1794 English translation of Virgil’s Aeneid and used a customized digital markup schema based on the guidelines set forth by the Text Encoding Initiative to indicate a set of poetic figures—such as simile and alliteration—within that text for analysis. While neither a translation project nor strictly a poetical analysis, this project and its unique approach to interpretive representation could prove of interest to scholars in several disciplines, including classics, digital scholarship, information management, and literary theory. The practice serves both as a case-in-point as well as an example method to replicate with future texts and projects. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special thanks to the Texts & Technology program at UCF for the Dissertation Research Award, enabling travel to the 2014 TEI Meeting in Evanston, Illinois, October 22–25, 2014. This document and project would not be possible without the guidance and support of my dissertation committee: Dr. Mark Kamrath, General Editor, Charles Brockden Brown Electronic Archive and Scholarly Edition; Professor, Texts & Technology Ph.D. program Dr. Rudy McDaniel, Assistant Dean of Research and Technology, College of Arts & Humanities; Director, Texts & Technology Ph.D. program Dr. J. D. Applen, Associate Professor, Texts & Technology Ph.D. Program Syd Bauman, Senior Programmer/Analyst, Women Writers Project, Northeastern University Thanks to the encouragement of the above individuals, my project has finally reached a presentable stage. In particular, thanks to Dr. Kamrath for taking me on in 2010 as an assistant and giving me TEI coding duties with the Charles Brockden Brown project, as well as agreeing to serve as my chair and mentor. Thanks to Dr. McDaniel for his coding insights and assistance with the Texts & Technology Ph.D. process. Thanks to the rhetorical expertise of Dr. Applen, especially for his and Dr. McDaniel’s 2009 book, The Rhetorical Nature of XML, that greatly influenced the direction of the project—before I even knew what my project would be. Finally, thanks to Syd Bauman for his technical expertise and for years of teaching and spreading the word of XML, XSLT, and custom TEI schemata. His influence on the field as a whole, including the ongoing development of the TEI, cannot be overstated. I am fortunate to have all of these great minds as foundational and ongoing support for this endeavor. iv Of course, the support of my wife, Janelle Coutts, cannot go unacknowledged. It has been a constant beacon in the oft-turbulent waters of uncertainty that have accompanied me. Her own achievement in earning a doctoral degree has provided inspiration and resolve for my own project. Thanks also is due to UCF’s Center for Humanities and Digital Research for providing financial support over several semesters of my doctoral program, affording me travel opportunities to present and witness scholarly inquiry, and for providing motivation and influence for my research in the digital humanities. Finally, thanks to the following individuals at the UCF Library’s Information Technology & Digital Initiatives division for creating and providing high-quality digital images of the James Beresford translation: Lee Dotson, Digital Initiatives Librarian Page Curry, Digital Imaging Technician Ashley McCarthy, Student Assistant v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................ ix A NOTE REGARDING SPELLING............................................................................................. xi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW ............................................................. 1 CHAPTER TWO: WHAT IS A TEXT? ......................................................................................... 5 Representation, Mediation, Interpretation ................................................................................... 5 The Digital Humanities: A New Space for Old Practices ......................................................... 17 CHAPTER THREE: WHAT IS MARKUP? ................................................................................ 28 Digital Markup .......................................................................................................................... 37 Markup beyond the Purely Technical: Humanities Computing ................................................ 41 Text in Code .............................................................................................................................. 55 Markup as Digital Ekphrasis: A Meta-Discussion of the Metadata .......................................... 56 Digital Ekphrasis ....................................................................................................................... 59 CHAPTER FOUR: MARKUP IN PRACTICE ............................................................................ 61 The Electronic Text and the Digital Edition ............................................................................. 62 A Discussion of the Associated Project Files ........................................................................... 76 Educating Students and Scholars about Markup ....................................................................... 77 CHAPTER FIVE: AN ORIGINAL: THE LEGACY AND ONGOING DEFORMANCE OF THE AENEID ............................................................................................................................... 78 vi Performing and Representing the Aeneid ................................................................................. 78 A (Con)Textual History: The Aeneid in 1794 .......................................................................... 87 CHAPTER SIX: THE PRESENT ADVENTURE: THE PROJECT'S INFLUENCE, GOALS, AND PROCEDURE ..................................................................................................................... 96 A “Traditional” Poetical Analysis ............................................................................................. 99 Figures of Sound ..................................................................................................................... 100 The Rhythm and Meter of Beresford’s Translation ................................................................ 104 Figures of Speech .................................................................................................................... 105 Figures of Thought .................................................................................................................. 109 Choosing a Markup Scheme ................................................................................................... 111 Digital Textual Analysis.......................................................................................................... 112 Creating a Digital Edition ......................................................................................................