One line of poetry written over two lines in MS and subdivisions of front matter (warning - bad poetry)

[strill66]

See below for two different attempts to markup a short (5 line) poem, in which - because of the size of the page - each line is spread over two lines of MS. Both appear valid: is there any reason to prefer one over the other?

Secondly, I'm trying to think though the structure of this book (which is a 'Book of Remembrances', so probably best understood as a cross between a diary and a series of meditations). It has several pages of prefatory material, some of which have subheadings: If the Book is div1, can Front matter be div2, followed by main body etc? Is 'subtitle' the best choice for the subheadings within those divisions (e.g., 'prayer' or 'dedication')? Or is there an alternative.

(and, in case anyone has the energy to engage with this, he main body of the text is arranged by dated entries (by year only, of varying lengths mostly in prose but with occasional verse) before some concluding prayers. Then after a couple of blank pages, there is an index which lists the contents of the main body of the volume but provides titles (based on the main events described within the entries), and after the index there are some further entries (under the title 'Remember to incert some Remarks/forgotten in this first Book'. I'm guessing that some kind of ref string or pointer will be needed for us to enable the reader to make connections, or, again, is there another alternative to consider?

[gabrielbodard]

To your first question: I think the two models for encoding a verse line spanning two lines on the page are:

<l n="1">Lord guide my heart,
<lb/>and giue my Soule directions</l>

and

<l n="1">Lord guide my heart,</l>
<l>and giue my Soule directions</l>

Of which I would strongly recommend the former, both for semantic purity, and for ease of processing. There is a single verse-line, and I see no reason to break that into two or more <l> elements. Remember that in TEI <l> means "a line of verse," and <lb> means "the start of a new line of text on the page."

If you end up tagging other features of this poem, such as its physical condition, layout on the page, hands and inks, etc., then you might find some of these overlap with the <l> elements, and have to make a decision about how to resolve that. But if at all possible I would prefer to keep semantic features of the text, such as "verse lines," intact.

[strill66]

@gabrielbodard thanks, that's really helpful!