Textual evolution
The evolution of a text through several drafts is difficult to convey on the printed page. In a transcription the plethora of symbols required to indicate deletions, insertions and corrections intrude between the reader and the text. A facsimile of the original manuscript may be equally confusing to the reader, who lacks an editor's familiarity with the scribal practices and peculiarities of the writer. Since electronic texts are freed from the static presentation of the printed page, they should offer the potential to allow new forms of interaction with texts. In this example we shall explore how simple animation techniques can be used to convey to the reader the editor's understanding of how a text evolved during its composition.
Obviously, we can rarely be certain exactly how a text evolved. The manuscript evidence is invariably incomplete and open to interpretation. However, the very attempt to represent the process of evolution may lead the editor to new insights and may prove a valuable research tool, as well as opening up new possibilities for interaction between readers and texts.
Creating dynamic texts on webpages that are accessible across the popular web browsers is not a straightforward task, although it has been made much easier by the advent of the W3C DOM. We are using a simple webpage with Javascript for this demonstration of the possibilities of the technique, as we want it to be accessible without needing to download any software. It does, however, require a browser that is W3C DOM-capable [IE 6 on Windows/IE 5 on Mac, Netscape 6(Mozilla)] and some of the capability that you might ideally want is not yet available in DHTML. The demonstration does not yet work perfectly under IE 5 on a Mac, but will give Mac users a flavour of what is possible - it also demonstrates the continuing hazards of cross-platform DHTML development.
The sample letter chosen to demonstrate a possible implementation of textual evolution is taken from Sara Jayne Steen ed., The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart (Oxford, 1994), pp. 239-1. The textual symbols used in the printed version are as follows:
- [as]
- Roman print within square brackets indicates letters or words provided by the editor.
- <as>
- Roman print within angle brackets indicates letters or words that were added or that replaced deletions in the manuscript.
- [as]
- Italic print within square brackets indicates letters or words that were deleted or written over in the manuscript.
- [<as>]
- Italic print enclosed in angle brackets and square brackets indicates letters or words first added and then deleted in the manuscript.
Large sections of prose containing many additions and deletions that Stuart deleted in their entirety appear set apart by asterisks.
This particular letter was written by Arbella to the Privy Council, when she was seeking a pardon from the king after her unsanctioned marriage to William Seymour. It exists in four autograph drafts, of which two are printed by Steen: the initial draft, in which the majority of revisions were made and the final presentation copy. The changes to the initial draft are so extensive, that it is a very difficult text to read in its edited form.
81 A - original presentation using print conventions
The animated version shows how the changes to the text might be ordered into a sequence of steps. It is intended to demonstrate how animation could be used with a complex text and is not intended to represent an editor's expert view of how this text evolved.
81 A - showing how interaction can show a text evolving
The final version of the text is straightforward and needs no special presentation techniques.
This demonstration has required careful coding of the text through an iterative process. It would be difficult to automate, so would be most practical for editions where only a small number of texts presented problems. If a large number of texts were involved, then more sophisticated animation techniques and the relevant software would be required.