Aims and Objectives:
The aim of this project is to trace the reception and impact of Gray's
most famous poem, the "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard" (1751), in a
number of languages and national literatures. Drawing on
the extensive collection of "Elegy" translations compiled by Tom
Turk, the purpose of this work is firstly to enable the study
of the evolution of translations of the poem in a single language,
and secondly to allow for a comparative study of the translations
across languages and literatures.
In this second phase of the project, we will cover the period up to
1850, comprising more than 50 verse and prose translations of the
"Elegy", including ones in five new languages: Armenian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Romanian,
and Slovene.
Results: All translations will be available
from the project home
page, which also provides a complete bibliography, further
information on the project, a help page, and a current list of
lacunae.
First published: [forthcoming]
Completed projects
Gray's "Elegy" in translation
Duration: 12 months (April 2017 - March 2018)
Aims and Objectives:
The aim of this project is to trace the reception and impact of Gray's
most famous poem, the "Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard" (1751), in a
number of languages and national literatures. Drawing on
the extensive collection of "Elegy" translations compiled by Tom
Turk, the purpose of this work is firstly to enable the study
of the evolution of translations of the poem in a single language,
and secondly to allow for a comparative study of the translations
across languages and literatures.
In this first phase of this project, we will cover the period up to
1805, comprising more than 50 verse and prose translations of the
"Elegy" in eleven languages (Danish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Polish,
Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Welsh). We plan to
extend this range to the 1830s and beyond (adding many more
translations and languages) in future phases of the project.
Update (12/12/2017):
Phase I of the project (1751-1805) will include the following 57 translations in eleven languages:
Axel Gabriel Silverstolpe
(verse, 1798)
[Turk (2013), 71]
Welsh
David Davis
(verse, 1798)
[Northup #865; Northup #867]
We are aware of the following lacunae from the period covered by this first installment of the project. If you are able to help with any of these, e.g. by tracing a translation or aiding with transcription, or if you are aware of any other gaps,
we would be pleased to acknowledge any contributions you make.
Thank you!
French
1770: Villevielle, Marquis de, not traced [Northup #740; Starr #171]
1802: Sarrasin, Adrien de, not traced [Northup #753]
1801: ?, prose paraphrase, incomplete, not traced [Starr #192]
Results: The project, as outlined above, was
successfully completed on time. All translations can be accessed
from the project home
page, which also provides a complete bibliography, further
information on the project, a help page, and a current list of
lacunae.
First published: 16 April 2018
Digital edition of Thomas Gray's letters
Duration: 12 months (January - December 2016)
Aims and Objectives:
The aim of this project is to make Gray's correspondence accessible online in
a new standards-based full-text editon. The purpose of this work is
two-fold, firstly, it will enable us to streamline development and simplify
any updates internally as well as to the external partners we are already
collaborating with, and secondly, it will allow us to expand our
outreach and facilitate new collaborations with initiatives such as
correspSearch.
The new edition will
include improvements to the letter records, such as consistent recording of
postmarks, locations of letter-writers and addressees, and updated information on
people, locations, and events mentioned.
The full-text of the edition will be based on TEI/XML and will make
use of the new guidelines
for encoding correspondences. Once completed, the current
DALF/XML-based records will be retired.
Results: The project, as outlined above, was successfully
completed on time. The TEI/XML-encoded full-text versions of the letters
have replaced the DALF/XML-based versions. The correspondence calendar has
been shared with the correspSearch project and Gray's
letters are now discoverable in the correspSearch catalogue of scholarly
editions of letters.
First published: 19 December 2016
Integration of the Archive's correspondence calendar
into the Cultures of Knowledge Project's EMLO union catalogue
Duration: 5 months (October 2013/February - June 2015)
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to make
the Archive's calendar of Gray's correspondence discoverable and
usable in the Cultures of Knowledge project's Early Modern Letters Online (EMLO) union catalogue of
correspondence from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries. The Archive is thus contributing to a global
union catalogue of early modern correspondence and will be
benefiting from the discovery platform and the visualization tools offered
and developed by the Cultures of Knowledge research project.
Results: The Archive's correspondence calendar
was shared with the Cultures of Knowledge project and was
integrated in EMLO in June
2015. Collaboration between the Archive and the Cultures of
Knowledge research project is ongoing.
First published: 2 July 2015
Close reading Gray, digitally
Duration: 18 months (July 2013 - December 2014)
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to
augment the process and enhance the experience of close reading
Gray's English poems by applying a mix of
traditional literary and computational methods. Poems are complex rhythmic,
sonic, and visual entities, and we will be paying particular attention to
the tensions between metre and rhythm, verse line and syntactic/semantic
organization, and sonic clusters and breaking points, always keeping in mind
their particular functions in the text. Our methodology employs a set of
digital techniques mainly from natural language processing (tokenization,
normalization, lemmatization, morphosyntactic annotation,
sentiment analysis etc.), phonetics (phonemic transcriptions according to the
IPA), and data visualization.
Results: The project was successfully completed on time.
The project results are accessible via the new "Analysis"-tab on the English
poems' pages. All tasks originally outlined in the project description have
been addressed:
prosody and poetic form (manually): we have completed the prosodic
analysis and classification of poetic form of Gray's English poems
(metre, rhyme scheme, syllable pattern, and line, stanza, and poem forms).
rhythm and poetic foregrounding (computationally): we have applied a
number of NLP tasks as a pre-requesite for a more thorough, computationally
facilitated analysis of the poems. We have identified and analysed a number
of metrical irregularities and deviations computationally drawing on the
identified syllabic and metrical stress patterns.
tropes and figures (computationally): we have successfully detected
a number of rhetorical figures in several linguistic domains. These
include: alliteration, paroemion, assonance, consonance (phonological);
polyptoton, epizeuxis, diacope, anaphora, epistrophe (morphological);
simile, homophonic paronomasia (semantic); ecphonesis, apostrophe
(pragmatic).
sonic patterns, clusters, and breaking points (computationally):
we have identified and investigated sonic phenomena only in the context of
the detection of phonological figures, and not, as initially suggested, in
relation to imagery and changes in sentiment.
data visualization (computationally): we have collaborated with the
Oxford
e-Research Centre to include Gray's English poems in
their Poem Viewer visualization service. Links
to the visualization can be found on each of
the Archive'spoems pages.
First published: 18 December 2014
Integration of the Archive's correspondence calendar
into the Electronic Enlightenment Project
Duration: 5 months (June - October 2012)
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to
integrate the Archive's correspondence calendar into the
Electronic Enlightenment
Project. This initiative is part of a plan to foster closer
collaboration between the Archive and the Electronic
Enlightenment Project through the sharing and of relevant resources
and the exchange of technical and editorial expertise.
Results: The project was successfully completed on time.
The Archive's correspondence calendar was shared
with the Electronic Enlightenment Project to supplement the 650
Gray letters with holdings information and print and online bibliographies.
The calendar was integrated in Electronic Enlightenment in the
project's October
2012 update. Collaboration between the Archive and the
Project is ongoing.
First published: 22 October 2012
Archive Website Re-design
Duration: 6 months (March - August 2012)
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to
re-design the Archive Website functionally and visually. The
purpose of the re-design is two-fold: firstly, to future-proof the Website
by moving it to current and emerging Web standards such as HTML5,
CSS3, and JavaScript/jQuery, and secondly, to speed up the development and
integration of new tools and functionalities. The visual re-design aims to
provide a new more modern layout, user-friendly design, and improved
navigation and access to content. We will also conduct a basic type of
usability testing in the form of an expert review.
Results: The project was successfully completed on time.
The newly designed Website replaced a design last updated substantially in
2006.
The main areas of improvements include:
prominent placement of navigation aids;
redesigned layout for increased readability;
intuitive and responsive digital library interface;
simplified access to notes and queries;
full-text of letters prominently displayed;
cross-referencing between primary and secondary content.
There is also a revised About section that comprises aims and objectives,
history, funding, methodology, output and dissemination, copyright and
citation guide, use and privacy policy, acknowledgements, and contact
information.
First published: 28 September 2012
Digitization of Oxford University's Gray MSS holdings
Duration: 3 months (September - November 2011)
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to
digitize and make freely accessible Oxford University's Gray MSS holdings.
The project was made possible by an agreement with the Bodleian Libraries
to this effect obtained in June 2011. The digitization of the MSS will be
done by the Bodleian's Imaging Services unit on one of their
Grazer cradle scanning stations. The material will be digitized in two
batches (literary MSS and correspondence materials) over a three months
period. The project will also allow us to catalogue the MSS in the process.
Results: The project was successfully completed on time.
High quality digital images of the eight
literary Gray MSS held by the Bodleian Libraries were added in the
December update.
The four
Gray MS letters will be added to the Archive's digital library
in March. The MSS records in the finding aid and letters collection have
been updated.
First published: 8 December 2011 and 1 March 2012
An integrated finding aid to Thomas Gray manuscripts
Duration: 12 months (December 2005 - November 2006)
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to
create an integrated finding aid to Thomas Gray manuscripts, initially
focusing on poetry MSS. The finding aid will contain information about all
identified autograph poetry manuscripts as well as transcripts in the
hands of Gray's contemporaries and early editors of his works. We will
adopt the XML-based EAD 2002 standard for recording collection-level
descriptions and archival information, including a physical description of
the items wherever possible. Where available, the records will contain links
to digital surrogates of both the original manuscripts and the first printed
edition of the work. Following the example in contemporary indices and
location registers of MSS, the finding aid will be arranged alphabetically
by uniform titles of works, as found in the Primary Texts section of the
Thomas Gray Archive. The individual manuscript witnesses will be listed
chronologically.
Results: The project was successfully completed on
time. The finding aid lists 213 MSS
items for 66 poetical works. We have been able to record and verify
location information for the vast majority of MSS. All identified MSS held
at Oxford and at the British Library have been catalogued at the holding
institutions. The workflows and procedures are now in place to extend the
work to all known Thomas Gray manuscripts, including his prose
works, personal papers, and marginalia.
First published: 7 December 2006
A browsable calendar to the correspondence of Thomas Gray
Duration: 9 months (April - December 2003)
Aims and Objectives: The aim of this project is to
create an up-to-date digital calendar of Gray's complete correspondence.
To this purpose, we are adopting a new XML-based standard for correspondence
materials, developed by Edward Vanhoutte and Ron Van den Branden, named
DALF.
One of the key objectives of the project is to verify and record the
current location of all surviving pieces of correspondence. A secondary
objective is to obtain, wherever possible, digital surrogates of the
original letters and permission to make them freely accessible online. To
this end we will be collaborating with reference and special collections
librarians at every identified holding institution. It is expected that
the initial project period of 9 months will allow us to produce a complete
set of basic bibliographic records, which will be enhanced over time.
Results: The project was successfully completed on time.
The correspondence calendar lists details
for 646 letters written by or to Gray. In the process, we have been able to
verify the location of more than 80% of the surviving letters. We have also
obtained permission to put online a number of digital surrogates that have
been made available to us.