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The editors of the William Blake Archive -- Morris Eaves, Robert Essick,
and Joseph Viscomi -- are pleased to announce that The Book of Thel,
copy F, is now online in searchable form. This may seem a modest
achievement, given that this is one of Blake's shorter works, and that
its eight plates (with enlargements and accompanying transcriptions)
have already been available on the site since November of 1996. In
fact, however, this copy of The Book of Thel is a prototype for all
future works to be added to the Archive (both illuminated books and
other materials), and its appearance reflects the architecture and
objectives of the Archive as they have taken shape over many months of
development, testing, and refinement.
Unlike its previous version, and unlike the other illuminated books
currently available in the Archive, this copy of Thel has been tagged
using SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). SGML tagging offers
the Archive's users the opportunity to perform sophisticated searches,
either on the text of the plates, or, more remarkably, on the content of
their illustrations. Search results are retrieved and presented using
DynaWeb, a product of the Inso Corporation. The text and image searching
enabled by DynaWeb and the underlying SGML tagging is a powerful
demonstration of the potential of electronic resources in the
humanities.
However, there's more. Users with Java-capable browsers can now make use
of Inote, Java-based software developed at the Institute for Advanced
Technology in the Humanities, to assist them in their study of the
Archive's visual materials. Users may employ Inote to examine editorial
annotations of a given image independently of a search, or else,
following a successful image search, Inote may be used to open the
image, zoomed to the specific area containing the object of the search,
together with the relevant editorial commentary. This is IATH's first
public implementation of Inote, and its release marks a major advance
for image-based electronic editing.
Users with Java-capable browsers can also take advantage of a second,
equally innovative Java program developed at IATH, the ImageSizer. This
is a feature that allows one to view Blake's plates and images at their
true size, reproducing the object's actual physical dimensions on the
screen, regardless of the resolution of a particular monitor; indeed,
users can calibrate this feature to consistently display the Archive's
images at whatever proportions they may wish.
Finally, the Archive's selective bibliography of criticism, reference
materials, and standard editions, with about 500 entries, is now
available. We hope to have the bibliography searchable by the end of the
summer. We also hope to have David V. Erdman's Complete Poetry and Prose
of William Blake online and searchable by that same time.
In the coming weeks and months we will turn our attention to placing
other illuminated books online in searchable form, following on the
model of The Book of Thel, copy F. We will begin with the other copies
of Thel (copies H and O), as well as copies of Visions of the Daughters
of Albion (copies C and J) now publicly available only in HTML -- thus
lacking any of the capabilities described above. We will then move on to
other books: All Religions are One (copy A), There is No Natural
Religion (copies C and L), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (copy D),
America (copy E), Europe (copies B and E), The Song of Los (copies A and
B), The Book of Urizen (copy G), Songs of Innocence and of Experience
(copy Z), The Book of Ahania (copy A), and The Book of Los (copy A).
The Blake Archive is located at:
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/blake/
Please forward this announcement as appropriate.
Matthew Kirschenbaum, Project Manager
The William Blake Archive
[log in to unmask]
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
