Letters: general notes
General information on encoding letters in three different contexts: within collections, embedded in other works, and as prefatory material
Letters appear in at least three different contexts, which impose slightly different encoding constraints. We describe each of those contexts here.
- Collections of letters
When a letter appears within a collection which consists entirely of letters, or in an anthology-like collection consisting of letters, essays, and other short works each of which can be encoded as a separate div, we recommend using div type="letter". This conveys the fact that the letter is part of a larger collection, rather than an independent entity. If you are encoding a collection in which each letter is accompanied by its own frontmatter, it may be better (though more verbose) to encode each letter as a text within a group. A collection of letters each of which has its own metadata would be better served with each separate letter treated as an independent TEI.2 document (perhaps grouped within teiCorpus.2). Projects which deal intensively and exclusively with letters should consider using the guidelines prepared by Digital Archive of Letters in Flanders, which provide more specific provisions for handling correspondence.
Within div, most letters will contain an opener, a sequence of body paragraphs, a closer, and possibly a postscript (which we recommend encoding with ps, an element provided in our DTD extensions). Note that opener and closer have the same internal structure, to accommodate the fact that some letters have the dateline at the end rather than at the beginning. Note as well that signed is not only for actual signatures, but for printed names as well.
- Letters within other works
Letters also appear nested within other works such as novels or histories. Because of the way the content model of div is structured, there are some places (e.g. within a chapter of a novel) where letters are found but where div is not allowed. In such cases, we recommend encoding the letter as a text, nested inside a p. If you wish to be able to extract all letters easily from your collection, regardless of their location, you may wish to nest a div type="letter" inside text for consistency, or to give text a type attribute with the value letter. (In the DTD extensions that accompany this Guide, text does carry a type attribute.)
- Letters as prefatory material, advertisements, etc.
For letters which are serving another structural purpose (such as prefaces or dedications), the epistolary function of the letter is often insignificant; it is still useful to mark up the interior structure of opener and closer and so forth, but for searching and analysis purposes it may or may not be useful to identify these as letters. Our recommendation is that prefatory material in the form of a letter should be encoded as div type="prefatory": in other words, that its function as a prefatory essay should override its function as a letter. However, your project may have good reasons for doing otherwise. For more information, see letters as prefatory material.