Acrostics

Encoding Instructions (old P4 version)

The WWP encodes acrostics so as to enable the words formed by the acrostics to be searched, counted, and otherwise processed explicitly. To make this possible we have created two new elements, acrostic and acrostics.

The acrostics element goes inside the hyperDiv, and is a container for one or more acrostic elements. Each acrostic element carries a target attribute, which points to the xml:id of the smallest element containing the entire acrostic. The word formed by the acrostic is encoded as the content of the acrostic element, with phrase-level tagging as necessary if the word is a proper name, foreign word, etc. No renditional information will be encoded within acrostic, since that information is already encoded in the actual acrostic in the text. All words in the acrostic element will be entered in modern mixed case (only proper nouns capitalized), regardless of the capitalization of the original. Original typography will be encoded if appropriate within the acrostic element, since in some cases letter ambiguity may make it inappropriate to encode it in the main text. (See for instance the acrostic in Speght’s Mouzell for Melastomus, in which the acrostic spells “Joseph Swetnam” but the initial word of the poem is “If”.)

In the main text, we do not tag the individual letters which make up the acrostic word (although this is possible and is provided for by the DTD).

Example 1. 
            <hyperDiv><acrostics>
            <acrostic 
            target="poem01"><persname>Jane 
            Taylor</persname></acrostic>
            </acrostics>
            </hyperDiv>
            ...
            <div type="poem"><lg 
            type="poem.acrostic" xml:id="poem.01">
            <l>Joine me, Muses, in a glad refrain,</l>
            <l>And hail a virtuous woman ycleped Jane.</l>
            <l>Now she is growen to full womanhede,</l>
            <l>Ever her actes shall be juste and goode.</l>
            <l>Take her as model, ye models of female grace,</l>
            <l>Albeit her virtue lies not solely in her face</l>
            <l>Yet shes not proud, nay, humbler than a nonne</l>
            <l>Like to do duty unto every one.</l>
            <l>Only to serve her Lord, is her desire,</l>
            <l>Receiving Heaven’s grace, her soule’s 
            afire.</l>
            </lg></div>