New Production—The Alchemist by Ben Jonson

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BTK

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Mar 25, 2019, 4:06:50 PM3/25/19
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While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do another play: Ben Jonson's The Alchemist from 1610. As far as I can tell this one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier and more consistent. 

Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson and seems to be pretty authoritative and is mostly modernized. It includes the introduction for the two volume set, so I will probably keep that. There is also a glossary which I am less inclined to keep.

Alex Cabal

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Mar 25, 2019, 4:07:55 PM3/25/19
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Let's wait on another blank verse one until we get everything settled
for the previous one. If we decide to make tweaks to the blank verse
template then it would be a pain to update everything.

On 3/25/19 3:06 PM, BTK wrote:
> While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do another
> play: Ben Jonson's /The Alchemist /from 1610. As far as I can tell this
> one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier and more consistent. 
>
> Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's /The Complete Plays
> of Ben Jonson /and seems to be pretty authoritative and is mostly
> modernized. It includes the introduction for the two volume set, so I
> will probably keep that. There is also a glossary which I am less
> inclined to keep.
>
> https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist
>
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BT Keith

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Mar 25, 2019, 4:12:39 PM3/25/19
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Sounds good. I will go ahead and play with it regardless to try an figure out its quirks and be prepared to chuck it all if necessary. I am having a lot of fun learning how much power I have with grep …who knew :-)
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BTK

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Apr 1, 2019, 1:24:18 PM4/1/19
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Ok now that Faustus is up I am going back to work on this.

A few questions:
The Gutenberg version included a List of Works and a Glossary. Should we keep these in?

There are two dedications: on to the Patron and another to the reader. Currently they are in separate files. Should I combine them?

There is an Argument which is a 12 line poem where the first letter of each line spells out THE ALCHEMIST. Currently I have an em space between the first letter and the rest to try and emulate the original. (https://archive.org/details/completeplayswit02jonsuoft/page/2) Is that ok or should I attempt some sort of table to line everything up perfectly?

Alex Cabal

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Apr 1, 2019, 2:16:42 PM4/1/19
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No, cut list of works and glossary. Generally we only keep the glossary
if there's a lot of technical words that are unlikely to be in a common
dictionary.

You can split the dedications.

Re. spacing I think that will be difficult, spacing is kind of fluid in
web rendering especially if the user selects justified text. One
interesting approach would be to use the :first-letter selector to give
the first letter padding-right: .5em. That would have very poor ereader
support, or even none at all; but if the css fails to apply it doesn't
look bad per se, and over time we can assume that eventually ereader
renderers will catch up with modern css and we'll get the spacing for
"free".
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BTK

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Apr 1, 2019, 4:25:54 PM4/1/19
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The Alchemist is a rollicking comedy about two con men and their female compatriot who gull a series of unfortunates out of their money. I came a cross the image of David Garrick playing the role  but unfortunately I couldn't find it anywhere (its in a private collection and doesn't seem to have been printed anywhere). But I did find this trio which seems to evoke the same playfulness.
cover sample.jpg
cover-1.jpg
cover-3.jpg

Alex Cabal

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Apr 1, 2019, 4:46:42 PM4/1/19
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First one looks good. And for once it's appropriate to use a painting of
1600s costume!
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BTK

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Apr 2, 2019, 12:48:33 PM4/2/19
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So I am wondering how far to go with the spelling modernization. For now all I've done is fix the common compounds like we usually would. But the text is rife with contractions: thou'rt, gull'd, do't, penn'd, ’gainst etc. The version of Faustus I worked from had fixed most of these especially all the ’ds and read pretty easily. This one is distinctly more archaic. And then there are words like Choak (choke), loth (loath), mungrel (mongrel) etc.

I think it works as is, but fixing some of the more obvious  old spellings might help it along. The problem is where to draw the line. I have two versions: The  New Mermaids fixes most of ’ds but leaves many of the elisions. My Norton Critical Edition modernizes pretty much all of it.

What's your call?

Alex Cabal

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Apr 2, 2019, 12:51:28 PM4/2/19
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Generally if changing the spelling does not change how the word is
pronounced, then go for it. choak, loth, mungrel are all good examples
of words that can be modernized because changing choak -> choke does not
change how it's pronounced, or the meaning.

I would say the same for gull'd -> gulled, penn'd -> penned, but *not*
for 'gainst -> against or thou'rt -> thou art.

On 4/2/19 11:48 AM, BTK wrote:
> So I am wondering how far to go with the spelling modernization. For now
> all I've done is fix the common compounds like we usually would. But the
> text is rife with contractions: thou'rt, gull'd, do't, penn'd, ’gainst
> etc. The version of Faustus I worked from had fixed most of these
> especially all the ’ds and read pretty easily. This one is distinctly
> more archaic. And then there are words like Choak (choke), loth (loath),
> mungrel (mongrel) etc.
>
> I think it works as is, but fixing some of the more obvious  old
> spellings might help it along. The problem is where to draw the line. I
> have two versions: The  New Mermaids fixes most of ’ds but leaves many
> of the elisions. My Norton Critical Edition modernizes pretty much all
> of it.
>
> What's your call?
>
> On Monday, 25 March 2019 14:06:50 UTC-6, BTK wrote:
>
> While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do another
> play: Ben Jonson's /The Alchemist /from 1610. As far as I can tell
> this one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier and more
> consistent. 
>
> Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's /The Complete
> Plays of Ben Jonson /and seems to be pretty authoritative and is
> mostly modernized. It includes the introduction for the two volume
> set, so I will probably keep that. There is also a glossary which I
> am less inclined to keep.
>
> https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist
> <https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist>
>
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Robin Whittleton

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Apr 2, 2019, 1:04:53 PM4/2/19
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I’m not doing this in the contemporaneous Pepys, if only because attempting to do it would mean that it’d be impossible to get the dratted thing out in the next 5 years.

(talking of Pepys, he seemed to be a fan of “The Alchymist”, saying “Then to the Theatre, The Alchymist, which is a most incomparable play.” Though to be fair he seemed to love pretty much anything that wasn’t Shakespeare.)

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BT Keith

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Apr 2, 2019, 1:08:45 PM4/2/19
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Hmmmm, gonna have to read that when you are done. I’ve had a hate on for Shakespeare since high school. Read pretty much every other Elizabethan I could find just to try and avoid him :-)


_________


BTK

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Apr 3, 2019, 5:29:13 PM4/3/19
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The 1910 version the transcription is based on has a minimum of scenes: one in Act 1, one in Act 2, two in Act 3 etc. My two modern texts have it broken up much more: three in Act 1, six in Act 2, five in Act 3 etc. Do you think adding the extra scene breaks is warranted?

Alex Cabal

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Apr 3, 2019, 5:30:51 PM4/3/19
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Please don't use modern texts as a reference, as copyright can get
fuzzy. Only follow pre 1924 texts, and exercise independent editorial
judgment on potential changes that we can then discuss.
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BTK

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Apr 3, 2019, 5:35:46 PM4/3/19
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Ok. I just had them out to read the footnotes. I will leave the scene breaks as is.


On Wednesday, 3 April 2019 15:30:51 UTC-6, Alex Cabal wrote:
Please don't use modern texts as a reference, as copyright can get
fuzzy. Only follow pre 1924 texts, and exercise independent editorial
judgment on potential changes that we can then discuss.

On 4/3/19 4:29 PM, BTK wrote:
>
> The 1910 version the transcription is based on has a minimum of scenes:
> one in Act 1, one in Act 2, two in Act 3 etc. My two modern texts have
> it broken up much more: three in Act 1, six in Act 2, five in Act 3 etc.
> Do you think adding the extra scene breaks is warranted?
>
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BTK

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Apr 3, 2019, 6:05:14 PM4/3/19
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Oh, and one more thing. Most plays written in iambic pentameter have indents added to text so when a line is broken in the middle the next line starts roughly at the end of the preceding one. The source text didn't so I have been adding these in based on "i1" to "i5" (one for each foot). I find it much easier to read and a more "modern" way to present the play. 

But maybe we should have discussed it first?

Alex Cabal

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Apr 3, 2019, 6:07:33 PM4/3/19
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This should not be necessary when using SE poetry CSS. If a line of
poetry overruns the page, the SE poetry CSS indents it by 1em on the
next line. If yours isn't doing that, then we did not apply the SE
poetry CSS correctly and we have to investigate this and update the
previous iambic pentameter play you did.
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BTK

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Apr 3, 2019, 6:12:24 PM4/3/19
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No, not that. See these two examples:
Alchemist.png
hamlet.png

BTK

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Apr 3, 2019, 6:13:49 PM4/3/19
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Ooops


Screen Shot 2019-04-03 at 4.10.35 PM.png

Alex Cabal

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Apr 3, 2019, 6:19:52 PM4/3/19
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I don't see it in this example.

In Hamlet it would be impossible to precisely replicate that spacing
because font widths will vary based on ereader. I think we can just
ignore them in that case.

On 4/3/19 5:13 PM, BTK wrote:
> Ooops
>
>
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BT Keith

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Apr 3, 2019, 6:23:40 PM4/3/19
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My plan was to do it by foot. That divides a line into 5 feet. I there are three feet on the receding line then the next line is indented 5em. I can dig up a bunch of examples; it really does make it easier to read given the rhythm of the text.

Actually I currently have it as:

p span.i1{
text-indent: -1em;
padding-left: 2.5em;
}

p span.i2{
text-indent: -1em;
padding-left: 5em;
}

p span.i3{
text-indent: -1em;
padding-left: 7.5em;
}

p span.i4{
text-indent: -1em;
padding-left: 10em;
}

p span.i5{
text-indent: -1em;
padding-left: 12.5em;
}
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David Grigg

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Apr 3, 2019, 11:24:05 PM4/3/19
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Just out of interest, a reproduction of cover-3.jpg has been hanging on the wall of my study for several years!

Alex Cabal

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Apr 3, 2019, 11:42:22 PM4/3/19
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OK; but why are you going in fractional ems? Why not whole numbers? The
poetry standard has i1 with padding-left: 2em

BT Keith

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Apr 4, 2019, 12:02:57 AM4/4/19
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It’s a work in progress? :-)

Seriously though I was trying to have “i5" at the end of an average line and then worked backwards from there. I built it this evening and it works pretty good even at monster type size. We could shrink it or grow it if you think it makes more sense. 10 em was a bit too short overall which is why I tried increments of 2.5.

BTK

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Apr 4, 2019, 10:45:48 AM4/4/19
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Do the contributor ids in the content.opf matter? Is there a list of recommended ids? The writer of the introduction is not the author or editor so is this ok?

<dc:contributor id="introductionauthor">Felix E. Schelling</dc:contributor>
<meta property="role" refines="#introductionauthor" scheme="marc:relators">aui</meta>

On Monday, 25 March 2019 14:06:50 UTC-6, BTK wrote:

Alex Cabal

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Apr 4, 2019, 12:09:23 PM4/4/19
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You can give them the ID of "author-of-introduction"

On 4/4/19 9:45 AM, BTK wrote:
> Do the contributor ids in the content.opf matter? Is there a list of
> recommended ids? The writer of the introduction is not the author or
> editor so is this ok?
>
> <dc:contributor id="introductionauthor">Felix E. Schelling</dc:contributor>
> <meta property="role" refines="#introductionauthor"
> scheme="marc:relators">aui</meta>
>
> On Monday, 25 March 2019 14:06:50 UTC-6, BTK wrote:
>
> While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do another
> play: Ben Jonson's /The Alchemist /from 1610. As far as I can tell
> this one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier and more
> consistent. 
>
> Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's /The Complete
> Plays of Ben Jonson /and seems to be pretty authoritative and is
> mostly modernized. It includes the introduction for the two volume
> set, so I will probably keep that. There is also a glossary which I
> am less inclined to keep.
>
> https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist
> <https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist>
>
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Alex Cabal

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Apr 4, 2019, 12:12:10 PM4/4/19
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OK. Let's just use the poetry standard i# classes. It will not be
possible to align things precisely because different fonts have
different letter widths and different renderers do spacing differently.

BTK

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Apr 4, 2019, 1:12:54 PM4/4/19
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Ok, another question. The title of the dedication is:

<h2 epub:type="title"><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">The Alchemist</i> to the lady most deserving her name and blood: Lady Mary Wroth.</h2>

Should I leave it like this? Lint complains about bad capitalization, but I figure I should just ignore it?


Alex Cabal

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Apr 4, 2019, 1:14:01 PM4/4/19
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Well that's a dedication, not the title. I would pull it out and put it
in dedication.xhtml
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BT Keith

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Apr 4, 2019, 1:17:11 PM4/4/19
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Man I am getting bad at this communication thing :-)

It’s actually the title to the dedication:

<section id="dedication" epub:type="dedication">
<h2 epub:type="title"><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">The Alchemist</i> to the lady most deserving her name and blood: Lady Mary Wroth.</h2>
<p>Madam,</p>
<p>In the age of sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in the greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and zeal of the sacrificers: else what could a handle of gums have done in the sight of a hecatomb? or how might I appear at this altar, except with those affections that no less love the light and witness, than they have the conscience of your virtue? If what I offer bear an acceptable odour, and hold the first strength, it is your value of it, which remembers where, when, and to whom it was kindled. Otherwise, as the times are, there comes rarely forth that thing so full of authority or example, but by assiduity and custom grows less, and loses. This, yet, safe in your judgment (which is a Sidney’s) is forbidden to speak more, lest it talk or look like one of the ambitious faces of the time, who, the more they paint, are the less themselves.</p>
<footer>
<p class="signature">Your ladyship’s true honourer,</p>
<p class="signature">Ben Jonson</p>
</footer>
</section>

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Alex Cabal

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Apr 4, 2019, 1:18:29 PM4/4/19
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Yeah do not put it in an h2, it is not a title. Put it in a p tag.
Dedications almost never have h# tags.
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Alex Cabal

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Apr 4, 2019, 1:19:10 PM4/4/19
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There are tons of books in the catalog with a dedication... I suggest
pulling one of them up and seeing how it's done there, with accompanying
styling.

On 4/4/19 12:17 PM, BT Keith wrote:
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BT Keith

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Apr 4, 2019, 3:28:18 PM4/4/19
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I am just playing around here, but I was wondering how I could get the Argument—which is a 12 line piece of verse—centered under the title. So a) is it good code and b) is it really something I should be messing around with?

This is what I came up with:

#argument{
text-align: center;
}

#argument > #text-block{
display: inline-block;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}

#argument span::first-letter{
padding-right: .5em;
}
_________

Alex Cabal

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Apr 4, 2019, 4:00:43 PM4/4/19
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The word you're looking for is a bridgehead. See the semantics manual
for standards.

Re code, it's best to not use id selectors if it can be avoided, and it
is not necessary to select a sub id of an existing id, because there can
only be one unqiue id value per document.

On 4/4/19 2:28 PM, BT Keith wrote:
> I am just playing around here, but I was wondering how I could get the
> Argument—which is a 12 line piece of verse—centered under the title. So
> a) is it good code and b) is it really something I should be messing
> around with?
>
> This is what I came up with:
>
> #argument{
> text-align: center;
> }
>
> #argument > #text-block{
> display: inline-block;
> margin-left: auto;
> margin-right: auto;
> }
>
> #argument span::first-letter{
> padding-right: .5em;
> }
> _________
>
>
>> On Apr 4, 2019, at 11:19 AM, Alex Cabal <al...@standardebooks.org
>> <mailto:al...@standardebooks.org>> wrote:
>>
>> There are tons of books in the catalog with a dedication... I suggest
>> pulling one of them up and seeing how it's done there, with accompanying
>> styling.
>>
>
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BT Keith

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Apr 4, 2019, 5:31:25 PM4/4/19
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Here’s an odd thing (to me). Poetry texts with poems of only one stanza (Rubyiat, Elizabeth Barret Browning) have the title and the stanza centered. Poetry texts with more than one stanza have the title centered and the text left justified. Is there a reason for that? Is it an id selector thing?

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Alex Cabal

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Apr 4, 2019, 5:46:00 PM4/4/19
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It's usually not possible to center two consecutive block elements along
the same axis, without adding markup cruft. It may be possible nowadays
with flexbox but I haven't investigated that yet and ereader support is
poor.

On 4/4/19 4:31 PM, BT Keith wrote:
> Here’s an odd thing (to me). Poetry texts with poems of only one stanza
> (Rubyiat, Elizabeth Barret Browning) have the title and the stanza
> centered. Poetry texts with more than one stanza have the title centered
> and the text left justified. Is there a reason for that? Is it an id
> selector thing?
>
>> On Apr 4, 2019, at 2:00 PM, Alex Cabal <al...@standardebooks.org
>> visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/standardebooks/fae98d74-025a-8716-c2cd-0bae36c115fe%40standardebooks.org.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>
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BTK

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Apr 5, 2019, 11:28:12 AM4/5/19
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I'm just rereading and proofing the Introduction and it strikes me that it might not be suited. I checked and Gutenberg decided to put the same Introduction to the 2 volume Complete Works in front of every Jonson play they transcribed. It is a general overview of Jonson's life and career and, while interesting, not particularly relevant to The Alchemist.

Thoughts?


On Monday, 25 March 2019 14:06:50 UTC-6, BTK wrote:
While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do another play: Ben Jonson's The Alchemist from 1610. As far as I can tell this one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier and more consistent. 

Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson and seems to be pretty authoritative and is mostly modernized. It includes the introduction for the two volume set, so I will probably keep that. There is also a glossary which I am less inclined to keep.

BTK

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Apr 5, 2019, 11:53:30 AM4/5/19
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It also occurs to me that since the Intro is in Volume 1 and the play in Volume 2, then I should have the links to both sets of page scans in  the colophon etc.?

Alex Cabal

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Apr 5, 2019, 12:42:39 PM4/5/19
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We can cut the intro then, if it's a general copy and paste kind of thing.

There's no set rule on what to do in a colophon with more than one scan.
I would just put the first one, and leave the rest in the metadata.

On 4/5/19 10:53 AM, BTK wrote:
> It also occurs to me that since the Intro is in Volume 1 and the play in
> Volume 2, then I should have the links to both sets of page scans in 
> the colophon etc.?
>
> On Friday, 5 April 2019 09:28:12 UTC-6, BTK wrote:
>
> I'm just rereading and proofing the Introduction and it strikes me
> that it might not be suited. I checked and Gutenberg decided to put
> the same Introduction to the 2 volume Complete Works in front of
> every Jonson play they transcribed. It is a general overview of
> Jonson's life and career and, while interesting, not particularly
> relevant to The Alchemist.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> On Monday, 25 March 2019 14:06:50 UTC-6, BTK wrote:
>
> While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do
> another play: Ben Jonson's /The Alchemist /from 1610. As far as
> I can tell this one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier
> and more consistent. 
>
> Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's /The Complete
> Plays of Ben Jonson /and seems to be pretty authoritative and is
> mostly modernized. It includes the introduction for the two
> volume set, so I will probably keep that. There is also a
> glossary which I am less inclined to keep.
>
> https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist
> <https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist>
>
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BTK

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Apr 9, 2019, 4:45:40 PM4/9/19
to Standard Ebooks
Ok. I think I've got this done. Ready for review.


On Monday, 25 March 2019 14:06:50 UTC-6, BTK wrote:
While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do another play: Ben Jonson's The Alchemist from 1610. As far as I can tell this one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier and more consistent. 

Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's The Complete Plays of Ben Jonson and seems to be pretty authoritative and is mostly modernized. It includes the introduction for the two volume set, so I will probably keep that. There is also a glossary which I am less inclined to keep.

Alex Cabal

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Apr 9, 2019, 5:26:55 PM4/9/19
to standar...@googlegroups.com
David, do you have a moment to review this?

On 4/9/19 3:45 PM, BTK wrote:
> Ok. I think I've got this done. Ready for review.
>
> On Monday, 25 March 2019 14:06:50 UTC-6, BTK wrote:
>
> While I wait to see how Faustus turns out I figure I will do another
> play: Ben Jonson's /The Alchemist /from 1610. As far as I can tell
> this one is 100% blank verse so it should be easier and more
> consistent. 
>
> Gutenberg's version is based off Felix Schelling's /The Complete
> Plays of Ben Jonson /and seems to be pretty authoritative and is
> mostly modernized. It includes the introduction for the two volume
> set, so I will probably keep that. There is also a glossary which I
> am less inclined to keep.
>
> https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist
> <https://github.com/b-t-k/ben-jonson_the-alchemist>
>
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David Grigg

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Apr 9, 2019, 7:37:05 PM4/9/19
to Standard Ebooks
Will do.

David Grigg

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Apr 10, 2019, 6:56:52 AM4/10/19
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BTK:

There are a few mostly minor issues which I've raised against the repository. A couple of them may be issues you've already discussed with Alex, but I don't have time right now to read through the whole of the thread above to check.

The compiled book looks good, you've done a great job with handling some very tricky formatting!



On Wednesday, 10 April 2019 09:37:05 UTC+10, David Grigg wrote:
Will do.

BTK

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Apr 10, 2019, 10:49:06 AM4/10/19
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I've fixed/addressed all the issues. 

  • Alex and I discussed the heading in the original dedication and it was decided to leave the "heading" as body. I followed suit with the To the Reader heading as well. CSS styling comes from other examples in the corpus.
  • The non-semanticated italics are gibberish meant to mock Spanish. I figured it was better not to mark them as Spanish.

Alex Cabal

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Apr 12, 2019, 6:12:57 PM4/12/19
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OK looks good, I've gone ahead and released it!

On 4/10/19 9:49 AM, BTK wrote:
> I've fixed/addressed all the issues. 
>
> * Alex and I discussed the heading in the original dedication and it
> was decided to leave the "heading" as body. I followed suit with the
> To the Reader heading as well. CSS styling comes from other examples
> in the corpus.
> * The non-semanticated italics are gibberish meant to mock Spanish. I
> figured it was better not to mark them as Spanish.
>
>
> On Wednesday, 10 April 2019 04:56:52 UTC-6, David Grigg wrote:
>
> BTK:
>
> There are a few mostly minor issues which I've raised against the
> repository. A couple of them may be issues you've already discussed
> with Alex, but I don't have time right now to read through the whole
> of the thread above to check.
>
> The compiled book looks good, you've done a great job with handling
> some very tricky formatting!
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, 10 April 2019 09:37:05 UTC+10, David Grigg wrote:
>
> Will do.
>
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