|
An Electronic Edition This digital critical edition of an unpublished 18th century manuscript “Les Mémoires de la comtesse de L…” has been done at Mount Holyoke College, as a collective term project for an advanced French literature class. It demonstrates the pedagogical use of XML/TEI technologies in the Classroom. French 331: Fictional Heroines in the “Ancien Régime” The purpose of the course was to read and discuss major French fiction documenting the life of women in the 17th and 18th century. Students wrote two traditional papers, but their main research project was the encoding of an unpublished 18th century manuscript, according to TEI Guidelines. Professor Nicole Vaget and Information Technology Consultant Shaoping Moss prepared in advance the design and format of the manuscript. When class started a model was ready and students could begin encoding literary themes. The manuscript was divided in equal parts and so was the class. Each group consisting of two students was assigned sections of the text for analysis and interpretation. The selection of themes to be indexed was a collective decision, while the gathering of images to illustrate the text, as well as the choice of significant words and phrases to be marked up with socio-cultural and historical annotations, was left to the individual. On the last day of class, each student presented her part of the project, explaining the rational behind her encoding. The result is a 60-pages interactive text documenting the life of a young woman of the aristocracy in the 18th century. Important themes such as love and seduction, marriage and convents, fathers and husbands, were encoded, allowing a quick and systematic exploration of the text. The names of people and places, which, according to the fashion of the time, were kept secret, were identified. Relevant images taken mainly from Rococo artists of the period were embedded, and significant words and phrases were marked up to explain the linguistic, or socio- historical context. In order to access such information, the user places the cursor over color-coded words: red will pop up a cultural note, while clicking on green will lead you to an annotation list identifying people, and pink to an annotation list identifying places. Clicking on the # mark will open an illustration. An index of cultural notes in red and a list of pre-selected themes in purple appear at the end of each section. With this new method students get a close reading of the text, and gain insight into the historical, political and social issues of the original material. It is clear that the intellectual challenges posed by the interpretation of the manuscript, along with the extensive study of major works of the period, has lead students to a better understanding of the condition of women of the nobility in the French provinces in the 18th century. It is equally clear that students have greatly benefited from the exposure to a sophisticated tool. Technology was integrated into the curriculum of the course, and demonstrations were given in class with each new step. Students had a technology mentor who could be consulted on an individual basis, and enjoyed the opportunity for hands-on experience with XML and TEI, the latest Web technologies available to the humanities.
|