Encoding Challenge: The Collected Works of T.S. Spivet

Our group is working on encoding two pages from Reif Larsen’s The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet.  I was familiar with the book when it first came out as being one that experiments with form: there is a lot of marginalia, maps, images, and other non-traditional forms.  All of these elements are present on the two pages we’ve chosen to encode, and all of them present their own encoding challenges. With such different formal elements, we’ve had to consider how important the form of a particular element is to the function. Even some fairly basic and traditional formal elements, such as the use of italics, presented problems for us. We were unsure of whether or not the italics always suggested the same thing (internal thought) in each instance, or whether they were meant to convey different things (an invocation in one instance and emphasis in another). We also had to discuss whether or not to tag these instances of italics separately if they were intact meant to convey different meanings.

The McAwesome Trident of Desire -- one of the images we are encoding.
Taken from 39 Counties blog.

There are also four separate images on the two pages we have chosen to encode. One of the first conversations we had to have as a group was about the intended purpose of these images, their relationship with the text, and how the reader is expected to read them. We decided that the final image was  integral to the text and was meant to be read as text, whereas two of the other images should be considered marginalia or something like a gloss. The role these images play within the text influenced the way we decided to treat them while coding.

For me, reading has always been a fairly intuitive act, but this assignment has challenged how I approach a text—it’s definitely an activity that I wish had been assigned during my undergrad as an English student.