Intro to TEI Feb 2022
This workshop introduces the use of TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) for marking up literary and historical texts and critical editions in XML. Delivered via a mix of asynchronous video tutorials and brief live sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we will offer basic instruction in encoding scholarly editions in TEI using a standard XML editor. Participants will be introduced to two different approaches to TEI usage and subsets (including EpiDoc for ancient texts, and modern multi-genre manuscripts), and have the opportunity practice the skills learned on their own texts (or some sample texts provided) and ask for help and feedback throughout the workshop as required. No prior experience in XML or coding is expected.
By the end of the workshop, students will have a working familiarity with TEI structures and vocabularies, and be able to articulate what models might be appropriate for specific editions.
You will need at least a basic text editor to do the exercises. We suggest that you download the oXygen (https://www.oxygenxml.com/xml_editor/download_oxygenxml_editor.html) XML editor, which is an integrated development environment for XML editing and publishing. You will need to request a 30-day free trial at https://www.oxygenxml.com/xml_editor/register.html.
If you'd rather use a free text editor, Atom or Visual Studio Code would also suffice.
If you would rather not download software, there is also a web-based text editor for TEI XML: https://tei-web-editor.herokuapp.com/
Day 1 (21 Feb): 15:30 UK time (GMT): Welcome; introductions; group discussion of text modelling.
Day 2 (23 Feb): 15:30 UK time (GMT). Review exercises from Day 1.
Day 3 (25 Feb): 15:30 UK time (GMT). Review exercises from Day 2 and workshop review.
We will start Day 1 with a group discussion on text modelling, which is an important thinking process to undertake before encoding. Here are the slides from a brief intro to modelling.
The following videos introduce you to the basics of TEI XML encoding, including the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), what the TEI is, and how to use the oXygen XML editor to encode your documents.
- Rules of XML (slides) (Gabriel Bodard) [19 min]
- Introduction to TEI XML (slides) (Christopher Ohge) [17 min]
- Introduction to Oxygen (Gabriel Bodard) [23 min]
Now that you have a basic understanding of XML and TEI, and how to encode documents using the oXygen editor, let's examine the TEI 'core' modules (that is, the modules that documents tend to have).
- TEI CoreModules (slides) (Christopher Ohge) [12 min]
The video tutorials below are not strictly required, but they introduce you to a variety of TEI encoding methods for particular purposes, from encoding basic prose structure, poetry, performance texts, critical apparatus, names, and manuscript and object descriptions.
- Walkthrough: tagging structure of text (Gabriel Bodard) [22 min]
- Walkthrough: tagging verse (Christopher Ohge) [12 min]
- Walkthrough: tagging performance texts (Christopher Ohge) [27 minutes]
- Walkthrough: Tagging text-critical features (Gabriel Bodard) [25 min]
- Tagging names (slides) (Christopher Ohge) [15 min]
- Walkthrough: History and description of object (msDesc slides) (Gabriel Bodard and Christopher Ohge) [20 min]
Exercise 1 (Monday–Wednesday):
Practice encoding basic features in either a text you are interested in, or choose some from the following list of examples and copy-paste into Oxygen:
- The first page of the Iliad in Samuel Butler's English translation
- The first page of the Iliad in ancient Greek
- The start of the Aeneid in John Dryden's English translation
- The start of the Aeneid in Latin
Focus first on the two main requirements for a valid TEI document (other than the TEI root):
-
<teiHeader>: fill in your basic metadata about publication and source. If you are doing materialist or manuscript study, try to fill in your manuscript description using<msDesc>. -
<text>: what needs to be included in your text? What are the essential tags for building structure and tagging semantic features? Will you need front matter, back matter?
Tutorials:
- Introduction to EpiDoc Guidelines (Irene Vagionakis) [13 min]
- Structure of an EpiDoc Edition (slides) (Irene Vagionakis) [18 min]
- EpiDoc Transcription Quick-Reference (QuickRef) (Gabriel Bodard) [10 min]
- Latin inscription example in Oxygen (Irene Vagionakis) [17 min]
- Abbreviations (slides) (Irene Vagionakis) [8 min]
- Complex lacunae (slides) (Gabriel Bodard) [14 min]
- Edition metadata (slides) (Gabriel Bodard) [16 min]
- Description of Object (slides) (Irene Vagionakis) [9 min]
- Origin and locations of object (slides) (Irene Vagionakis) [12 min]
Exercise 2a:
Try to encode some inscriptions or papyri, either texts that you know already, or copy/paste into Oxygen a few from the following examples:
- Latin Decree (fragmentary) from Ptolemais
- Latin military epitaph from Cyrene
- Latin building dedication from Lepcis Magna
- Latin verse inscription from Bu Njem
- Greek building inscription from Cherson
- Greek funerary inscription from Tyras
- Greek honorific inscription from Aphrodisias
- Greek civic decree from Cyrene
- Fragmentary Latin letter from Roman Egypt
- Greek papyrus from Herakleopolites
- Greek tax invoice from Hermopolites
- Proclamation from Oxyrhynchus
Tutorials:
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Overview of anti-slavery ms collection (slides) [15 min]
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Walkthrough: Encoding correspondence [9 min]
Exercise 2b:
These exercises have you practicing on three different kinds of texts from the Bow in the Cloud archive, but you are free to practice on your own projects if that suits you.
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Correspondence: Letter from Lord Morpeth to Mary Anne Rawson (1834)
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Poem with revisions: Elizabeth Walker, 'The Triumph of Freedom' (English MS 415/131)
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Rawson's Notes to the Preface, with revisions