[tei-council] Guidelines Ch. 6

[Rebecca Welzenbach]

Hi all,

I've been reading Chapter 6, which overall seems to be in really good
shape--extremely thorough examples and very clearly written. One bit
that gives me pause is below.

In 6.1 there is an example:

<lg type="stanza">
 <lg type="sestet">
  <l>In the first year of Freedom's second dawn</l>
  <l>Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one</l>
  <l>Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn</l>
  <l>Left him nor mental nor external sun:</l>
  <l>A better farmer ne'er brushed dew from lawn,</l>
  <l>A worse king never left a realm undone!</l>
 </lg>
 <lg type="couplet">
  <l>He died — but left his subjects still behind,</l>
  <l>One half as mad — and t'other no less blind.</l>
 </lg>
</lg>

Followed by some commentary:
"Note the use of the type attribute to name the type of unit encoded
by the lg element; this attribute is common to all members of the
att.divLikeclass (see section 4.1.1 Un-numbered Divisions). ‘Sestet’
and ‘couplet’ might conceivably also be used as the values of the
rhyme attribute in an analysis of rhyme scheme, for which see below,
section 6.3 Rhyme and Metrical Analysis. The type attribute is
intended solely for conventional names of different classes of text
block; the met attribute is intended for systematic metrical
analysis."

I'm not convinced that 'sestet' and 'couplet' are on their own viable
values for @rhyme. These terms simply define how many lines are in a
group. While there are conventions/implications about what this means
for rhyme in certain kinds of poetry, they do not explicitly document
a rhyme scheme, which is the purpose of @rhyme. If others agree, I
propose the following revision:

"Note the use of the type attribute to name the type of unit encoded
by the lg element; this attribute is common to all members of the
att.divLikeclass (see section 4.1.1 Un-numbered Divisions). When used
on <lg>, the type attribute is intended solely for conventional names
of different classes of text block. For systematic analysis of
metrical and rhyme schemes, use the met and rhyme attributes, for
which see below, section 6.3 Rhyme and Metrical Analysis."

Or maybe I'm wrong: would 'sestet' and 'couplet' become meaningful
values for @rhyme if (and perhaps only if) a specific rhyme scheme
corresponding to each were defined in <metDecl>? In this case, my
proposed revision to the text is still correct, but the original could
stay as it is.

Becky