I’ve been preparing electronic texts since the earliest days of the Web, mostly but not exclusively of eighteenth-century works. I’ve scanned some, typed others, and spatchcocked various public-domain E-texts together.
Since my primary audience for these texts is my students — which might range from nonmajor undergraduates through subject-specialist graduate students — I’ve worked hard to provide enough annotation to make the texts usable. And around 2020 I started experimenting with a new format for providing both short notes and longer, more discursive ones. They don’t follow the best standards for TEI, but, well, TEI-compliant texts aren’t readable in plain old web browsers, so I have to work with what I’ve got.
The short notes usually perform the function of a glossary. In a typical prose paragraph they might look like this:
He was angry, and said, Who would have you otherwise, you foolish Slut! Cease your Blubbering. I own I have demean’d myself; but it was only to try you: If you can keep this Matter secret, you’ll give me the better Opinion of your Prudence; and here’s something, said he, putting some Gold in my Hand, to make you Amends for the Fright I put you in. Go, take a Walk in the Garden, and don’t go in till your Blubbering is over: And I charge you say nothing of what has past, and all shall be well, and I’ll forgive you. |
own = admit try = test charge = order |
Glosses are centered, top-to-bottom, at the level of the paragraph, and most glosses fit comfortably in a line, but if they don’t, it’s not the end of the world. Things look different in verse:
| Bless me! a Packet — “’Tis a stranger sues, [55] | packet = letters; sues = begs |
| A Virgin Tragedy, an Orphan Muse.” | |
| If I dislike it, “Furies, death and rage!” | |
| If I approve, “Commend it to the Stage.” | commend = recommend |
| There (thank my stars) my whole Commission ends, | |
| The Play’rs and I are, luckily, no friends. [60] | play’rs = actors |
| Fir’d that the House reject him, “’Sdeath I’ll print it, | fir’d = angry; ’sdeath = I swear |
| And shame the Fools — your int’rest, sir, with Lintot.” | interest = influence; Lintot, Pope’s publisher |
| “Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much.” | |
| “Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.” | |
| All my demurs but double his attacks; [65] | demurs = objections |
| At last he whispers, “Do, and we go snacks.” | go snacks = share profits |
| Glad of a quarrel, strait I clap the door, | strait = right away |
| “Sir, let me see your works and you no more.” |
Now there’s a reason to keep the glosses short enough to fit on a single line, since anything more than that will interfere with the lineation of the verse.
Most of these glosses are simple synonyms, and I indicate them with an equals sign. They’re always context-sensitive: in any given passage want might mean desire, lack, or need, so I provide different glosses each time they appear. I’m always on the lookout for words whose meanings have changed since the words were written, but I also gloss words that might be current but unfamiliar to beginning students.
I don’t routinely explain outdated spellings — I trust readers to decode tripple, wou’d, chuse, extream, un-tam’d, and so on. But I might when I suspect confusion is possible, so I might provide “shew’d = shown” and “chirurgeon = surgeon.”
Not all the marginal notes are simple synonyms; sometimes I try to provide very brief discursive explanations. So I have “Lintot, Pope’s publisher” — not as detailed as a full note, but enough to get the sense of the line. And sometimes I try to explain complex syntax:
| Friend to my Life, (which did not you prolong . . . | did not you = if you did not |
I’ve tried to make these glosses as readable as possible on large screens and small. I’ve also tried to be mindful of readers who don’t want to be bothered by interruptions: there are no hyperlinks, superscript note numbers, or asterisks and daggers. Readers who need no glosses can just ignore the right-hand side of the page.
The marginal glosses aspire to be nothing more than good enough. I could write a whole paragraph about how the guinea was introduced in 1663 and varied in worth before eventually settling down to twenty-one shillings in 1717, but for most purposes it’s good enough to know “guinea = a gold coin.” I know humour isn’t quite identical to “mood,” but it’s close enough for government work.
Most printed texts gloss a word just once and count on readers to keep its meaning in mind, but this format lets me repeat it as often as necessary, as with the eighteenth-century meanings of own ‘admit’, toilet ‘dressing table’, and want ‘lack’.
When I can’t squeeze an explanation into a single marginal note, I resort to a hyperlink to the longer notes at the bottom. These are just common-or-garden explanatory notes, and when I have a little more space than in the glosses I can afford to be more precise.
Send comments and suggestions to Jack Lynch.