This project publishes the TEI encoding of the first chapter of Oscar Wilde's manuscript, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).

This project uses ceTEIcean

See the full manuscript of Dorian Gray on the Morgan Library & Museum website.

What is TEI?

Let's first take a look at some TEI code. Here is an example of some TEI that encodes a line of text and indicates a portion that has been struck out.

<line>This is a 
    <del>
        paragraph
    </del>
   line of text
</line>

To those who are familiar with it, TEI, at first glance, looks a lot like HTML. Both use a tagging structure that encloses textual elements to indicate something about those elements. However, while HTML encodes how text should appear on a webpage, in the form of titles, headings, paragraphs, or links, TEI encodes the content of the text, in addition to some description about its appearance.

Hierarchy

The major constraint of TEI is that all elements must be nested within a hierarchical structure. This means there's a root element containing branches. The branches cannot overlap.

This means that tags must nest properly, that is, you must always close the last tag you opened before closing a tag you opened previous to the last one.

See page 20 and page 21 from the Dorian Gray manuscript.

Below, we can see part of the transcription to the above image. The <line> tags containing other tags, such as <del>.

Some tags also contain attributes that further describe the tag, such as <strikethrough> to indicate text that has been struck out.

         <line>"You</line>
         <line>remember that landscape of mine, for</line>
         <line>which Agnew offered me <gap reason="deleted"></gap> a</line>
         <line><gap reason="illegible"></gap><add place="above">huge</add>price, but which I would</line>
         <line>not part with? It is one of the</line>
         <line>best things I have ever done. And</line>
         <line>why is it so? Because, while I</line>
         <line>was painting it, Dorian Gray sat</line>
         <line>beside me, <del rend="strikethrough">and as he leaned across</del></line>
         <line>
            <del rend="strikethrough">to look at it, his</del> 
            <mod>
               <del rend="strikethrough">cheek</del>
               <add place="above" rend="strikethrough">hair</add>
            </mod>
            <del rend="strikethrough">just</del>
         </line>
         <line>
            <mod>
               <del rend="strikethrough">brushed</del>
               <add rend="strikethrough" place="above">touched</add>
            </mod>
            <mod>
               <del rend="strikethrough">my cheek</del>
               <add rend="strikethrough" place="above">hand.</add>
            <del rend="strikethrough">The world becomes</del>
            </mod>
         </line>

Queer Mark Up Activity

For this project, I created a tagset reflects the general theme of each revision.

For this activity, spend a few minutes coming up with your own themes for the revisions. Use this transcription from pages 20-21 as your basis for your decisions.

Then, get into groups, and see if you can decide on a set of tags (maybe 3-5 tags) to mark up the text.

At the end, we will share our tagsets!