Introduction

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) left a manuscript material that covers approximately 20.000 pages. All of these manuscripts are now being prepared for publishing. For the drama texts there are prompt copies; parts; printer's copies; final fair copies; copies of printed editions revised by hand and used as printer's copy for the next edition; drafts that range from ideas for the whole play on a piece of paper to complete fair copies that have been revised so thoroughly that they can no longer be considered to be fair copies. Then there are drafts and fair copies of the poems, and finally Ibsen's letters. Our situation is surely not unique. Projects that are publishing the complete writings of a modern writer are sure to encounter the same range of manuscripts, and will also, when using the TEI Guidelines, encounter phenomena in the manuscripts that are not covered by chapter 18 "Transcription of Primary Sources". The Guidelines state that their "recommendations are not intended to meet every transcriptional circumstance likely to be faced by any scholar" (quoted from the introduction to chapter 18). Still we would find it useful if the Guidelines did include recommendations for some of these transcriptional circumstances, or if a documentation of best practise was included. For this reason we would like to present the problems we have encountered and the solutions we have chosen in the encoding of Ibsen's manuscripts for Emperor and Galilean (1873). We feel that it is appropriate and useful to present the whole process of encoding a complex manuscript, and the questions this process has raised.

The manuscripts for «Emperor and Galilean»

The planning and writing of Emperor and Galilean took almost ten years. The play was published in 1873, and consists of two dramas, both with five acts; the first edition covers 512 pages. The content of the drama is the life of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate. Though later not thought to be one of Ibsen's best plays, Ibsen himself considered Emperor and Galilean to be his most important work. There are six manuscripts for Emperor and Galilean. Four of these (NBO Ms. 8to 1937a, NBO Ms. 8to 1937b, NBO Ms. 8to 1937c, NBO Ms. 8to 2821:14) are small fragments containing drafts and notes. These are all at the National Library in Oslo. Then there is the printer's copy (Kgl. Bibl. Kbh. Collin 262, 4to, II, 3), which is at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. The last one, also at the National Library in Oslo, and the one we would like to present here, is NBO Ms. 4to 1111. NBO Ms. 4to 1111 consists of notes, drafts and unfinished fair copies, bound by the library in one large volume of about 700 pages. Smaller notes and fragments have been placed first in the volume, larger drafts and temporary fair copies have been placed at the end. This organization is new, and has probably been done during the binding. Earlier it has been ordered differently; a red pagination (supposedly done by a librarian) is sign of this earlier order. In the volume the red pagination is no longer in its original order. Ibsen himself has left us few clues as to how the material should be organized; there are few dates and only some parts are paginated. We do not consider the current organization of the manuscript as final, since the volume has been made after Ibsen's own time. Our first task is thus to organize the manuscript according to our project's principles. We have decided on chronology/genesis, where this is possible to decide. When we have no direct clues in the material as to what belongs where we will have to make qualified guesses based on content analysis. The next question is the question of typology. This is important for searchability and for the possibilities of organizing the electronic edition. As said, NBO Ms. 4to 1111 consists of a number of different types of manuscripts. There are two sides to this. First we have to decide how detailed the typology should be. Secondly we have to find appropriate terms for the types of material in the manuscript (cfr. facsimile below). There is not yet a fixed typology in this area. Scholars are not always using terms like notes, drafts, fair copies etc. in the same manner. This we think holds for both Norwegian and international scholars. The TEI Guidelines keep themselves out of this discussion (for obvious reasons) and leave the question of typology to their users. Our project has developed a typology that fits the Ibsen material. This typology might be of interest to others as well. (The facsimile below contains a working manuscript with drafts of speeches, and notes in prose.) <group> <text>...</text> <text> <body> lt;div type="workingManuscript"> <div type="act" n="1-3"> <sp who="JULIAN"> <p></p></sp> <sp who="GALLUS"> <spOpener><speaker>Pr. G.</speaker></spOpener> <p></p></sp> <sp who="JULIAN"> <spOpener><speaker>Pr. J.</speaker></spOpener> <p></p></sp> ... </div> </div> <lb/><figure type="bar"></figure> <div type="notes"> <div type="act" n="1-4"> <p>...</p> </div> </div> </body> </text> <text>...</text> </group> Then there is the question of the basic encoding of this material. We have decided on a structure of groups of texts (cfr. the TEI Guidelines 7.3). We also use unnumbered <div> elements rather than numbered ones since we have found the same types of texts on different levels (cfr. the TEI Guidelines 7.1.3). At the more detailed level of the encoding, we will have to consider for instance what encoding is appropriate for text fragments that later turn up as parts of speeches. How should these be encoded, as speeches or prose? They usually lack speakers and stage directions. To what extent should we link these fragments to their later use in speeches? It will be possible to link the manuscript material both internally and externally (to the rest of the text witnesses to Emperor and Galilean), and it will also be possible to organize the material according to other principles than ours. As shown in the encoded example above we supply the outer <div> level (type="workingManuscript/notes") with a type attribute holding the appropriate value for the text type. The inner <div> level (type="act") contains type and n attributes. The value in the n attribute records which part of the drama and which act (within this part) the text belongs to. The type attribute records which textual level (e.g. "act") this piece of text belongs to. With this information we can for example reorganize the material according to text type or according to the chronology of the first print. We can also present comparisons of manuscript and e.g. the first print through linking. In addition to the questions mentioned above, there are a few minor problems to solve. First, some of the bits and pieces of the manuscript are unfinished; the text ends in the middle of a sentence. We will of course check that the missing parts really are missing, and put them in the correct place if they are located somewhere else in the manuscript. Secondly, we have encountered what is for us a new phenomenon. There are a few lists (cfr. facsimile below) in this manuscript, listing either sources (with page numbers) that Ibsen has read and then used in his writing, or listing themes/scenes (also with page numbers) that he wants to include. As he has checked his list he has crossed out (some, but not all of) the items. How should we record this? These deletions seem not to be standard manuscript deletions, yet we consider using the <del> element with the rend and type attributes to record the rendition and the unusual purpose of the overstrike. <del type="checkList" rend="overstrike">...</del> The manuscript also includes graphics, illustrations (cfr. facsimile below) and calculations (this manuscript reveals that Ibsen among other things invested some of his money in train stocks, cfr. facsimile below). There is also writing upside down on some pages (cfr. facsimile below). So far we have decided that upside-down writing and calculations should be recorded in the appropriate part of the <teiHeader>. Graphics and illustrations are encoded as usual as <figure>. This is work-in-progress which hopefully by summer 2002 will be well on the way. We are very interested in hearing what experience others have with similar questions, and we hope that our work may be of interest to others working in this field.

Facsimiles

Ibsen, Henrik: Emperor and Galilean. The National Library of Norway Ms. 4to 1111. Reproduced from the database at Centre for Ibsen Studies (http://www.hf.uio.no/ibsensenteret/), University of Oslo.