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Dear list people,
This is a "please stop me from reinventing the wheel" sort of posting.
I maintain the "Scotstext" website at http://scotstext.org/ and am looking
to put it into XML or at least supply parallel XML files to the HTML already
present.
This contains all sorts of traditional literature (all in or about Scots) -
poems, essays, stories, novels &c. It doesn't attempt to reconstruct the
original books online (I plan to do that through photscans), so it's purely
a Web presentation. My problem is that I can't find a good XML application
for representing both poetry and prose.
The most authoritative XML representation of poetry I've seen is the Project
Gutenberg XML, but, as well as the fact that PG doesn't seem to try very
hard at Wen presentation, it doesn't give me a way of representing the
indentation of the poetry. I also want to be able to include "semantic"
information, so that a person can order up things like "All ballades by
Andrew Lang before 1949", for example.
An rough example of how a single poem might look (note that the URLs don't
currently exist) is:
<Text>
<Head>
<Author>Andrew Lang<\Author>
<Date>1945</Date>
<Genre>Ballade</Genre>
<Indent>01</Indent>
<Photoscan>http://scotstext.org/photoscans/northern_muse/p224.png</Photoscan
>
<Photoscan>http://scotstext.org/photoscans/northern_muse/p225.png</Photoscan
>
</Head>
<Title level='1'>Ballade o the Tweed</Title>
<Paragraph>Written on the banks of the river in
question.</Paragraph>
<Stanza>
<Line>The ferox rins in ruch Loch Awe,</Line>
<Line>A weary cry frae ony toun;</Line>
<Line>The Spey, that lowps o'er linn an fa',</Line>
<Line>They praise a' ither streams abuin;</Line>
<Line>They boast their braes o' bonny Doon:</Line>
<Line>Gie me to hear the ringin reel,</Line>
<Line>Where shilfas sing an cushats cruin</Line>
<Line>Bi fair Tweedside, at Ashiesteel!</Line>
</Stanza>
<Stanza>
<Line>There's Ettrick, Meggat, Ail, an a',</Line>
<Line>Where troot sooms thick in Mey an June;</Line>
<Line>Ye'll see them tak in shouers o snaw</Line>
<Line>Some blinndin, cauldrife Aprile nuin:</Line>
<Line>Rax ower the palmer an mairch-broun,</Line>
<Line>An syne we'll show a bonny creel,</Line>
<Line>In spring or simmer, late or suin,</Line>
<Line>Bi fair Tweedside, at Ashiesteel!</Line>
</Stanza>
<Stanza>
<Line>There's mony a watter, great or sma',</Line>
<Line>Gaes singin in his siller tune,</Line>
<Line>Throu glen an heuch, an hope an shaw,</Line>
<Line>Beneath the sunlicht or the muin:</Line>
<Line>But set us in oor fishin-shuin</Line>
<Line>Atween the Caddon-burn an Peel,</Line>
<Line>An syne we'll cross the heather broun</Line>
<Line>Bi fair Tweedside, at Ashiesteel!</Line>
</Stanza>
<Chorus label="Envoi">
<Line>Deil tak the dirty, tradin loon</Line>
<Line>Wad gar the watter ca' his wheel,</Line>
<Line>An drift his dyes an pizens doun</Line>
<Line>Bi fair Tweedside at Ashiesteel!</Line>
</Chorus>
</Text>
I use <Text> rather than <Poem> because there might be any sort of text in
here - the <Genre> element should clarify exactly what it is.
Does anyone know if this sort of application is already available, or do I
need to develop it myself?
If I do, what sort of software (other than stuff I already know I need for
my site) should I be developing to support it, as a minimum?
Thanks for any help/pointers.
Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/
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