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Archilochus of Paros: Elegiac Fragments – XML Archive

This training resource has been created for a seminar taught as part of the DEA (Digital Edition of Archilochus) project.  It could become a model, reusable for other fragmentary poems. It can be used in the classroom to help students improve their research, data acquisition, analysis and handling skills.
 

Learning Outcomes

This training resource can be integrated in the classroom to teach students how to:
  • critically analyse ancient Greek fragmentary texts 
  • annotate annotation 
  • use a corpus for a digital scholarly edition of an ancient Greek poet to answer specific research questions.

Author(s)

Dip. Discipline Umanistiche, Sociali e delle Imprese Culturali
University of Parma, Italy
 
Other Contributors:
  • Beatrice Nava (University of Bologna): Ph.D. Student, co-instructor of the course and collaborator in the DEA (Digital Edition of Archilochus) project.
  • Students enrolled in the Greek Philology (MA, 6 CFU) and History of the Greek Language (BA, 6 CFU) of the University of Parma. They attended the laboratory and encoded texts under the supervision of the tutors.

Description of the Training Materials

(Sub)discipline, Topic, Language(s)
Discipline: Classics / Data Science
Topic: Ancient Greek Language and Literature / Text annotation
Languages: Ancient Greek / English / Italian
Keywords Ancient Greek, Fragmentary poetry, Textual criticism, Text annotation, Data Science
URL to Resource n/a
Resource URL Type http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11752/OPEN-537
CLARIN Language Resources and Services
 
The CLARIN-IT repository was chosen to store the seminar results, which stimulated the uptake of the CLARIN services among classical scholars.
Structure and Duration
The materials are structured as follows:
  • Unit 1: Textual Criticism.
    •  Materials: Slide + Summary in English
    •  Lesson (2h): to explain how to create a traditional critical edition.
  • Unit 2: Text Annotation.
    • Materials: Slide + Summary in English
    • Lesson (2h): to explain how to create a digital scholarly edition.
  • Unit 3: An Exemplum.
    • Materials: TEIHEADER + Specimen + Summary in English
    • Lesson (1h): to analyse together an exemplum and to explain TEIHEADER
    • Exercises (1h): Laboratory to test competence and to start the work.
  • Exercises (2h): Laboratory to test competence and to realise a fragment under the supervision of the tutors.
  • Exercises (2h): Laboratory to test competence and to realise a fragment under the supervision of the tutors.
  • Repository: to store the results of the workshop. Encoded texts could be a sample of new texts.
Target Audience
Intermediate and advanced (2nd and 3rd BA and MA students studying ancient Greek)
Expertise (Skill) Level
Prerequisite knowledge and skills required:
  • good knowledge of ancient Greek
  • basic knowledge of data science
  • analytical skills with special references to ancient texts
  • reasoning skills to translate one code into another one.
 Beginner-level skills in research methods, data acquisition and management are required.
Facilities Required
Technical resources and related materials (both for teachers and for students):
  • Software: an academic tool for text annotation (e.g. Oxygen XML Editor).
  • Datasets: a reliable critical and scholarly edition (A. Nicolosi, Archiloco. Elegie, Bologna 2013).
  • Infrastructure: CLARIN-IT repository to store, share and spread results.
Format
  • Course: Program.
  • Unit/Lesson 1: Slide + Summary in English.
  • Unit/Lesson 2: Slide + Summary in English.
  • Unit/Lesson 3: TEIHEADER + Specimen + Summary in English.
  • Report: an XML Archive from CLARIN-IT repository.
  • README: a short description of the training materials.
Course(s) in which the training material was used
The seminar was held online at the University of Parma on February 16th, 17th, 19th, 24th and 26th, 2021.
The seminar was organised as a free-to-attend intensive course as part of the following programmes:
Licence and (re)use Creative Commons - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) 
Creation Date Creation date: 2021-03-28
Last Modification Date
First revision: 2021-04-16
Last revision: 2021-05-03
 

Experience with Using CLARIN Resources in Teaching

The seminar teaches practical skills in XML / coding of ancient literary texts (text and critical apparatus), as well as an overview of the state of the art in the field of scientific and digital critical editions. Students encode selected fragments of Archilochus of Paros (VII sec. B.C.); thus, they can directly test the potential of digital philology. CLARIN resources were used to explain the benefits of using the research infrastructure to store and share datasets. Students acquire basic knowledge about research methods, data acquisition and management skills by using the infrastructure and archiving the output of the training course in the CLARIN-IT repository. Storing and sharing data on a reliable and sustainable infrastructure, such as CLARIN, has proven highly relevant, especially during COVID-19.
 

Students' Testimonials

“I think the Seminar/Workshop on the Elegies of Archilochus of Paro was useful and profitable from a double perspective. First, the project, especially the laboratories, allowed me to exploit and consolidate my knowledge of text coding (XML/TEI). Coding ancient texts is really very different from what I previously knew. Testing some specific aspects, I could understand the theory and the practice; only when faced with real textual problems, one is forced to search for possible solutions. Then, I think the project allowed me a deeper study of Archilochus’ texts, improving the approach to critical apparatus and notes. Finally, the plan of the meetings and the support of the tutors, Prof. Anika Nicolosi and Dr. Beatrice Nava let the easy involvement of all students.” (Filippo)

 

Additional Information and Resources

Referenced by:
 
  • A. Nicolosi, M. Monachini, B. Nava, CLARIN-IT and the Definition of a Digital Critical Edition for Ancient Greek Poetry. A New Project for Ancient Fragmentary Texts with a Complex Tradition, in Selected Papers from the CLARIN Annual Conference 2019. «Leipzig, Germany – September 30th-October 02nd, 2019, Conference Proceedings», ed. by K. Simov and M. Eskevich, «LiU E-Press» CLXXII (2020) 85-93 [eISSN 1650-3740 (Online) – ISSN 1650-3686 (Print) – ISBN 978-91-7929-807-4]. Link.
 

Cite this Work

Nicolosi, Anika and Nava, Beatrice, 2021, Archilochus of Paros: Elegiac Fragments – XML Archive, University of Parma, ILC-CNR for CLARIN-IT repository hosted at Institute for Computational Linguistics “A. Zampolli”, National Research Council, in Pisa, http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11752/OPEN-537.
 

Contact Information

Teachers who reuse and adapt this training material are invited to share their feedback via training [at] clarin.eu (training[at]clarin[dot]eu)