Index talk:The Dunciad - Alexander Pope (1743).djvu

Introduction

The Dunciad is a poem in four books. Of itself, it's not really that long a work but there are many, many footnotes (or 'Remarks') - I thought Hudibras was bad - a lot of which are very extensive, to the extent that there may only be two lines of the poem on the page, the rest being annotation. The number and extent of these 'Remarks' can also result in a 'Remark' being on a different page to the text it is about.

In addition to the 'Remarks', there are also 'Imitations', which identify sources or inspiration for particular lines.

A note on the OCR

In common with a number of other texts I've worked on, the OCR text for this work is pretty accurate but, somewhat bizarrely, it has split most 2 or 3 letter words into their component letters. This effect usually gets worse the further down the page one goes. Whilst the 'Clean up OCR' tool improves the situation (run it at least twice), it won't put these words back together.

I looked for other online transcriptions and I found one from the same edition, but it doesn't include the other material in the book or the 'Remarks'.

The Wikisource OCR tool won't run. If anyone knows how to refresh the OCR in a DJVU file, please feel free.

General formatting

Blackletter

There are a few pages in black letter. Use {{bl| [text here]}}. I find that to make it look OK it's best to increase the text size by a notch (not a technical term!), so for nominally normal sized text make it {{larger|}}, etc.

Greek

There are a few bits of Greek text. I've been using {{polytonic|[text here]}} for formatting. I find it easier to enter longer pieces of Greek text by changing the keyboard setting in 'Windows' to Greek. Otherwise use 'Greek' or 'Greek extended' in the 'Special characters' menu

Footnotes or 'Remarks' and 'Imitations'

In addition to the situation described in the Introduction, there are no indicators in the text to show that there are relevant 'Remarks' or 'Imitations', although the appropriate position for them is unambiguous; they begin by quoting the relevant poem text.

After consulting the 'Footnotes and Endnotes' help page, which doesn't cover the situation where footnotes refer to earlier pages, I decided that the priority was to ensure that the text and notes transclude properly as a whole, which the following achieves. What it does mean is that the individual pages don't quite render properly; 'empty' footnotes appear in some places.

Grouping 'Remarks' and 'Imitations'

Where both appear on a page, they are grouped. To replicate this, for 'Remarks' use <ref group="R"> </ref> and for 'Imitations' use <ref group="I"> </ref>. The <ref group ...> form needs to be used for all footnotes.

Formatting 'Remarks' and 'Imitations'

Each page of the text which features 'Remarks' and/or 'Imitations' includes a heading above them - unsurprisingly - 'Remarks' or 'Imitations'. This is automatically included in the Footer of the individual pages. If there is only one 'group' on a page, the footer content for the missing group should be deleted. If there are no 'footnotes' on a particular page, the footer content for both can be deleted. Don't delete the {{center block/e}} though.

The footnotes are formatted using {{smallrefs|group="R"}} and/or {{smallrefs|group="I"}}.

'Remark' or 'Imitation' and the text it relates to are on same page, 'Remark' or 'Imitation' is complete

Use <ref group="R"> or <ref group="I"> as appropriate

'Remark' or 'Imitation' and the text it relates to are on same page, 'Remark' or 'Imitation' carries over to one or more following pages

In the following, I use "p42" as an example name for a footnote which continues onto subsequent pages. Each such footnote should have a unique reference and the Help suggests using 'p' followed by the relevant page number. If you need to reference more than one such continuation footnote on the same page, and there are instances of this in the 'Dunciad', I use '42-1', '42-2', etc.

Use <ref group="R" name="p42" /> </ref> at the appropriate point in the text. On subsequent pages put the continuation of the 'Remark' in <ref group="R" follow="p42" />[Remark text continuation]</ref>. It seems to work best if this is positioned before anything else in the Page Body section. The "p42" reference must be used consistently throughout. For an 'Imitation' substitute 'I' for 'R'

'Remark' or 'Imitation' and the text it relates to are on different pages

In this case it doesn't matter if the 'Remark' is on one page or more than one. At the point in the poem text where the 'Remark' is to be located, insert, for example, <ref group="R" name="p42"><!-- placeholder for footnote which is on page 42 --></ref>. The <ref></ref> objects if there's nothing between 'ref' and '/ref' so I just put in an explanatory comment, which doesn't appear on screen.

On the following page, insert as the first item in the Page Body <ref group="R" follow="p42">[Remark text here]</ref>. If the 'Remark' isn't on that page either, just insert <ref group="R" follow="p42"><!-- placeholder for footnote which is on page 42 --></ref>. Repeat this until you get to the page where the 'Remark' actually is. The reference name (i.e. "p42" in my example) needs to be the same throughout and if a <ref group="R" follow> construct is not used on all of the relevant pages, the footnote will not transclude correctly. As before, for an 'Imitation', substitute 'I' for 'R'.

Formatting the poem

The poem is positioned on the page using {{center block/s}} in the header, {{center block/e}} in the Footer, both of which should appear automatically.

For the first page of each Book, the {{center block/s}} needs to be moved into the Page Body (at the top), and for the last page of a Book, the {{center block/e}} needs to be moved likewise but to the bottom, otherwise the Book won't transclude properly.

Overall formatting is achieved using <poem> and </poem>. This is easier and much quicker than inserting a line break after each line. It does have some drawbacks, principally after <poem> is inserted, it severely limits the effectiveness of the 'Clean up OCR' tool, so if you need to use that, do so first. This will however remove all the breaks in the poetry part of the page, so it's a page-by-page judgement about the best order to do things in.

Line numbers

The poem features line numbers on the left every 5 lines. Use, for example for line 55, {{pline|55|l}}. It works whether it is positioned at the beginning or the end of a line (I haven't tried it elsewhere).

Line indents

I use : or :: for 1em or 2em indents. Above that I use {{gap|3em}}, etc.

Note however, : upsets {{pline}}, so if there is both an indent and a line number, use the {{gap}} template for the indent.

Braces

In works of this vintage, if the rhyme scheme changes (e.g. if the work is in couplets but a triplet gets thrown in) this is usually indicated by a brace at the RHS. Use {{gap|6em}}{{float right|{{brace2-PNG|3|r}}}} at the end of the first line of the variant scheme. It produces a brace of about the right size for 3 lines. If it needs to cover more, increase the '3' accordingly.

If the line has a line number and a brace, the templates appear to affect one another (at least they do with right hand line numbers) and a bit of experimentation may be needed in terms of the order you use the template in and positioning the {{pline}} (i.e. at the beginning or end of the line). I haven't tried the left hand line number, right hand brace combination yet though.