From the Passage, the Reader Can Conclude That Cecily

Agreement (Through) Annotations: Introductory Remarks ¹⁾

Matthias Bauer and Angelika Zirker

Published in Connotations Vol. 29 (2020)

Abstract

This article introduces the special result on "Understanding (Through) Annotations" and addresses the two topics that are fused into ane by means of the brackets in its title, namely (1) the understanding of annotations, of what kind they are and how they are attached to texts, and (2) the understanding through or by means of annotations, their specific hermeneutic part. It assumes that the reflection on annotations furthers our insight into methods and functions of close reading, while, at the aforementioned time, besides considering the functions of annotations in education. One of its major claims concerns the relevance of annotations to a text as a whole as well as the passage it immediately refers to. By positing a number of provocative examples and hypotheses it invites the critical contend on all matters related to annotations and their connotations.

Why Connotations and Annotations? This is a question we would like to address in our introductory remarks, together with some first ideas every bit to what it means to understand annotations, and what it means to understand through, or with the help of, annotations. The purpose of Connotations, founded most 30 years agone by Inge Leimberg, has been to focus on "the semantic and stylistic energy of the language of literature [→ page 35] in a historical perspective" (www.connotations.de); in this phrase, "energy" is non a meaningless metaphor simply chosen with the rhetorical notion of energeia in mind, that which makes literary expression take an outcome. In other words, what Connotations aims at is the textual and linguistic backdrop that are responsible for each text having its specific significant and upshot. Such properties may oftentimes be local, i.eastward. consist in a item word option or turn of phrase, but they may also spread over a text, every bit in the case of characteristic motifs. We therefore believe that attention to particular is important in reading literature critically. And this is where annotations come in.

Of course, there are many ways of defining annotations, but even in the broadest sense they draw attention to detail. Reflecting on annotations helps u.s.a. to get a clearer insight into methods and functions of shut reading itself. ²⁾ Addressing the central question, to what extent tin/may annotations contribute to agreement a text, is also an excellent fashion of considering their functions in teaching. ³⁾ Both aspects, we hope, volition contribute to the methodological agenda of this special effect of Connotations. Nosotros volition then as well see that annotations are non only a marginal result; rather, they accept a key function in literary communication simply are still lacking a theoretical rationale as well equally best practice models. Our special issue aims to show that both can be advanced and that doing so means furthering literary theory and critical practice. In the following, we will very briefly address the two topics that are fused into one by means of the brackets in our title, namely (1) the agreement of annotations, of what kind they are and how they are attached to texts, and (2) the understanding through or past means of annotations, their specific hermeneutic function. Both questions are linked by considerations of relevance, which tin exist expressed every bit conditions to be fulfilled: the annotation must exist relevant to the text or the part/aspect of the text to which it is attached if information technology is to make sense, and the passage annotated must be relevant to the text as a whole if the annotation is to further our understanding of it. [→ page 36]

1. Understanding Annotations

To understand annotations ways to learn more most their forms and functions. Annotations may range from text tagging and markup to interpretive notes. They may exist the personal notes of a reader and document his or her process of understanding, or they may be notes fabricated for other readers, ofttimes as function of an edition. Depending on the (academic) context 1 moves in, the word "annotation" may accordingly refer to very different kinds of phenomena. All of them, however, are related, in one way or another, to understanding a text or agreement it better. This is even the case when we sympathize annotations as mark-up and tagging and use them for quantitative assay and "distant" reading, i.eastward. not just when we understand them as explanatory annotations (which may include interpretive notes) and use them for a qualitative approach. ⁴⁾ Especially with regard to the latter, nonetheless, we can see huge differences whenever we open an annotated, i.east. scholarly, edition of a literary text. Editors practise but rarely elucidate the approach they take in annotating a literary piece of work; and even if they do, statements as to their practice remain vague. An example is the Cambridge School Shakespeare series edition of the sonnets that claims to encourage multiple interpretations but, in actual practise, then delimits ambiguity in the notes (meet our paper on "Seven Types of Problems"). Obviously, annotations, in a school edition, serve a didactic purpose, simply what that purpose is remains unclear. Nosotros see that, at least implicitly, annotations may serve a didactic calendar. Some critics suggest that the reader may fifty-fifty be pushed in a particular direction past means of explanatory notes (see Small 190; Hanna; cf. Bauer/Viehhauser/Zirker), e.grand. because of the canonical consequence of annotations (Martens 46). This issue, notwithstanding, may have undergone some change with the upsurge of digital annotations; for instance, in questioning the permanence of annotations and their authority, "how information technology is established and maintained" (McCarthy 371).

To our listen, annotations, especially explanatory annotations (see Bauer/Zirker, "Whipping Boys," and Zirker/Bauer, "Introduction"), [→ page 37] contribute to understanding and interpretation without necessarily beingness interpretive themselves. This concept of annotations presupposes a certain degree of objectivity, which means that they should be valid beyond an private's reading—or understanding—of a text.

Questions regarding the understanding of annotations may hence include the following:

• Are they systematic?
• Can we divide information from interpretation?
• Are they placed plausibly in a text (anchors)?
• Are aspects of the medium (volume vs. digital annotation) considered?
• What is the readership the annotator(s) has/have in heed?

The understanding of a (literary) text by ways of annotations implies other issues, most of them of a hermeneutic kind. ^v) Most prominent, or so we would like to suggest, is the part-whole problem; or, in other words: how can the local note contribute to our understanding of the text as a whole? This is of course a question belonging to our second point (understanding through annotations) simply the answer very much depends on the nature of the note whose prerequisite, equally we accept pointed out above, is the relevance of the annotation to the annotated passage.

In some cases, notes are difficult to empathise. They presuppose, for example, expert noesis—but even given that are difficult to handle. In the edition by Joseph Duchac—An Annotated Guide to Commentary Published in English, 1978-1989, of Emily Dickinson's poems, one of the entries on "Myself was formed a carpenter" (J488) reads as follows:

1988 Wolff, Emily Dickinson, pp. 431-32
"Although the poem claims to draw a process in which power is transferred, the poem itself is finally without power. And if the prototype of 'Scaffolds drop' indicates liberation, it also carries the shadow image of an execution." (266)

When nosotros taught this verse form in a form on "Annotating Religious Poetry," everyone was puzzled. There are no scaffolds in the poem, either stable [→ page 38] or dropping. Obviously, this annotation presupposes "expert knowledge" (our "problem" #three; "Seven Types of Problems" 216-eighteen) simply also leads the (non-expert) reader on to the wrong track (#4), and its office is unclear (#2). Because nosotros could not make any sense of it, we started to google, and, alas, constitute that the line "Scaffolds drop" is from a different verse form altogether ("The Props assistance the House" J729). Checking Wolff confirms this: her passage refers to J729 but the editor turned it into an unintelligible note on J488. This example may be a particularly glaring case of an annotation that is difficult (if not incommunicable) to understand, but information technology still exemplifies tendencies: notes often refer to other texts without sufficiently explaining why. And it may suggest a few answers to our next question, if and how understanding is furthered through annotations.

ii.  Understanding through Annotations

In guild to accost this point, nosotros would like to give a few examples that may help illustrate links between understanding annotations and understanding through annotations. The examples are taken from different works and their editions in the field of English literature.

2.1 Annotations that Obstruct/ Complicate Understanding

We propose that nosotros tin can acquire nearly the way in which annotations help united states of america understand a text by looking start at an example of "annotations that obstruct or complicate understanding." In the latest version of Jane Austen's Juvenilia – published as Teenage Writings (OUP 2017), the editors, Kathryn Sutherland and Freya Johnston, point out that their notes were "written with the aim of expanding the reader'southward sense of what the young Austen might have been responding to" (245), i.due east. the notes primarily serve to indicate towards Jane Austen'due south own reading and how it fed into her early literary creations, which means the emphasis of their [→ page 39] annotations is on intertextuality. This arroyo undoubtedly focuses on a relevant aspect of the text every bit a whole (our second condition); nevertheless, some of the notes obscure their relevance (our first condition) since all sorts of explanations are beingness mixed up with interpretations, which makes information technology difficult to dissever factual information from subjective reading. What is more than: there is no (clear) principle to exist found equally to which items are explained and which are not.

In "Frederic & Elfrida," the opening passage of "Chapter the Tertiary" reads as follows:

In the mean time the parents of Frederic proposed to those of Elfrida, an union betwixt them,* which being accustomed with pleasure, the wedding cloathes were bought & nothing remained to be settled but the naming of the Twenty-four hour period.*
As to the lovely Charlotte, being importuned with eagerness to pay another visit to her Aunt, she determined to have the invitation & in consequence of information technology walked to Mrs Fitzroys to take go out of the amiable Rebecca, whom she institute surrounded by Patches, Pulverisation, Pomatum & Pigment* with which she was vainly endeavouring to remedy the natural plainness of her confront. (5)

Three items are given a note (see * in the quotation). While the beginning ii refer to marriage conventions of the time (e.g. that naming the date of the wedding "was the bride's prerogative" 250n), the third item is explained as follows:

Patches, Pulverisation, Pomatum & Paint: an echo of the nearly celebrated list in 18th-century literature: 'Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux' (The Rape of the Lock, canto I, 50. 138). 'Pomatum' is an ointment for the pare or pilus. JA originally wrote 'Rouge, Powder, Pomatum & Paint'; by changing 'Rouge' to 'Patches' she heightens the comic alliteration and makes the innuendo to Pope more than overt. (Austen 250n5/v)

Explanations seem to be scattered somewhat randomly. "Pomatum" is explained just "Patches" is non, nor is the fact that "Powder," at the time, was used for hair not the face (every bit is common in our days). The note is helpful in spotting the link to Pope, which is confirmed past Austen's afterthought of replacing "Rouge" with "Patches." The reader is left alone, however, when it comes to possible functions of the echo. Is it [→ page 40] just to participate in the fame of the list? The indicate of Pope'due south listing seems to be to mix manufactures of beautification with "Bibles" (NB the plural) and evidence of love-affairs. Austen studiously avoids the satirical mix, but why does she carp then to evoke Pope? Those readers who do not spot the innuendo without the note would need some further explanation in any case, if the annotation is to be useful to them. How many undergraduates, ane may inquire, know what Pope's The Rape of the Lock is well-nigh? Since evaluation is included anyway ("the almost celebrated listing"), why not go a step further and include a few suggestions equally to its meaning and connotations? Otherwise, the intertextual reference may leave a reader puzzled as to the significance of Pope for Austen's work: is this merely a quondam reference? Was Pope an author that she frequently, if not regularly referred to? Specially in the Juvenilia maybe? Is the function of the list the same, or at to the lowest degree similar, in both works? What is even more pertinent to our interest in understanding through annotations: does the pointing out of this intertextual innuendo explain Austen's text? Considering that the passage annotated should be relevant to the text as a whole if the annotation is to further our understanding of it, this annotation does not serve its purpose. A more than integrative approach seems to be required which, to be fair, tends to exceed the limited space of a printed book.

2.2 Annotations that Farther the Understanding of a Text

For all that, nosotros are non confined to worrying about how not to do it. Our next example of an annotation is one that may further the understanding of a text. It is taken from the third Arden edition of Shakespeare'southward Coriolanus by Peter The netherlands. In ane.3, Volumnia, the female parent of Caius Martius, his married woman Virgilia, and a friend who is visiting, Valeria, talk about the son of Caius Martius and Virgilia—and near how he tore apart ("mammocked" 1.3.67) a butterfly after, or rather while playing with it. The action is described by Virgilia, and her female parent-in-police force [→ page 41] comments: "One on'due south father's moods" (1.3.68). The netherlands writes in his annotation (182n68):

moods rages (OED n.one 2.b; cf. R3 1.two.244, 'Stabbed in my angry mood'); but Volumnia may too have in heed OED 2.a, 'Fierce courage; spirit, stoutness, pride' if the meaning was still current.

The annotation opens up the historical meaning of the word "mood"; the last reference for this meaning in the OED is 1579 (and the definition in fact reads: "Tearing courage; spirit, vigour. Also: pride, arrogance. Obsolete."). ^half-dozen) This historical meaning of mood equally "courage," "spirit" and especially "pride" gives us a hint early in the play equally to the attitude of Coriolanus' mother that will become relevant time and over again in the course of the tragedy. "Pride" is 1 of the major characteristics of Caius Martius, ⁷⁾ and his mother is proud of her chiliad-child, because he is like his father. She, accordingly, does not condemn his cruel activity (as we probably practice) but praises it. The potential ambiguity of "mood," opened up by the note, hence makes us understand something about the characters in this play.

ii.3 A 'All-time Practice' Model: TEASys—The Tübingen Explanatory Annotation System

Studying examples of annotations that hamper or farther our understanding of literary texts, we have been wondering how to found a methodical arroyo to the problem. With this end in heed, we started developing TEASys, the Tübingen Explanatory Annotation System. It is closely linked to our theoretical considerations and attempts to put them into practice while, at the same time, it helps u.s. revise the theory based on the practical experience of researching and writing notes.

TEASys strives to make the processes entailed in annotating transparent in the annotations themselves. It therefore addresses both issues: make annotations understandable and make them contribute to the [→ page 42] understanding of a text. We work with altogether eight categories of annotation ⁸⁾ on 3 levels. ⁹⁾ Annotations are created past students in peer-groups and get through an internal reviewing process, first by the peers and and so by us, the supervisors. They are published electronically, which entails several advantages, e.g. the possibility to filter data (if someone is, for instance, interested in intertextuality only) and to set internal just also external links (see world wide web.annotating-literature.org).

A claiming that nosotros regularly meet in our work is relevance. To give an example: in Charles Dickens's Christmas Story of 1843, The Chimes, Toby Veck, the protagonist, prepares his dinner at one point:

Still Trotty sniffed the savour of the hissing bacon—ah!—as if he liked information technology; and when he poured the boiling h2o in the tea-pot, looked lovingly downwards into the depths of that snug cauldron, and suffered the fragrant steam to curl about his nose, and wreathe his caput and face up in a thick cloud. (120)

In the beginning version of this annotation, the student wrote the following note:

A cauldron is a "big kettle or boiler" (OED "cauldron/caldron, n. one.").

Due to unlike works of fiction, such every bit Shakespeare's Macbeth or the Harry Potter series, a cauldron is often associated with witches, wizardry and magic. However, in Dickens's time, the cauldron was primarily used to prepare food or drink over an open fire. Trotty, for instance, boils tea in his cauldron.

"cauldron/caldron, n." OED Online. July 2014. OUP. 02. July 2014.

When nosotros read the notation and commented on it, we remarked, autonomously from correcting the language, on the defective relevance of the references to Shakespeare and the Harry Potter books. Our first condition was glaringly ignored. The student had read up on "cauldrons" and institute that they were used in contexts of magic and wizardry; she probably establish that information fascinating, perhaps even with regard to the multiplicity of contexts in which the word may be used. Accordingly, she found it hard not to share this information with other readers. Nonetheless, she came to the decision to mitigate its lack of relevance. She subdivided the note [→ page 43] in accordance with our levels and categories and introduced, after explaining the linguistic significant of "cauldron" on L1, an L2 context notation, titled: "Cauldrons and Witches."

What frequently proves useful and also easier to approach than the composition of a note from scratch is the expansion of an existing note, east.g. from a scholarly edition, on an advanced level. In the annotations to SON 81, for example, existing annotations are used but expanded upon. For the phrase "common grave" in l. 7, the post-obit language notation is given on L1:

'Common' hither means elementary, ordinary, "of no special quality" or undistinguished (cf. OED "common, adj." 11 a.+b.); i.east. "an ordinary grave, a grave shared with others" (Duncan Jones 272n7).
References:
OED "common, adj." 11.a.+b.
Duncan Jones, Katherine (ed.). Shakespeare's Sonnets. London: Thomson, 1997.
(http://world wide web.annotating-literature.org/annotations/read.php?pid=71)

Duncan Jones goes on to explain how the fact that "Shakespeare was buried in an honorific position in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, is not, as has been suggested particularly ironical (Brown and Feavor, 27ff.), for the dissimilarity hither is between any physical class of burial and the living monument of verse." Our annotators, nevertheless, opted to leave this out and add an interpretive note that foregoes speculation (and its discarding) regarding Shakespeare'southward potential foresight as to his burial place on L2:

The ordinary grave is assorted with the monument in line nine. The speaker is but awarded a common grave, merely the sonnet stands every bit a monument to the addressee. Even though his writing can make the leaseholder immortal the speaker assumes that his writing will non bring him enough acclaim, so that he will non be remembered.(http://www.annotating-literature.org/annotations/read.php?pid=71)

Final Remarks

In order to trigger a fruitful debate on annotations, nosotros have opened the special issue with a provocatively normative claim: annotations, at least [→ page 44] explanatory annotations published online and in scholarly editions, must be clearly subservient and conducive to the hermeneutic process. In order to fulfil that function, they must exist relevant to the chemical element of the text to which they are attached, and that element must be relevant to the understanding of the text every bit a whole. Whereas the outset kind of relevance is comparatively easy to evaluate, the 2d 1 is much harder to appraise. The objection may be made that we only know if an annotated text item is relevant to understanding the text as a whole when we have understood the text completely. This is either impossible or merely possible if every possible contribution to such a full general understanding is known, which in many cases requires annotations—a roughshod circle. Still, for the time being, we would like to maintain our relevance merits considering it may guide the annotator who has to make up one's mind about what to comment. Such priorities can assist, particularly in a digital context in which there are no technical limits to the number of annotations. And what the analyst, especially afterward feedback from a grouping of readers and co-annotators, can show to exist relevant to an understanding of the poem, play, or novel, should have first priority. Simply this is open to critical contend.

Eberhard Karls-Universität
Tübingen

Works Cited

Austen, Jane. Teenage Writings. Ed. Kathryn Sutherland and Freya Johnston. Oxford: OUP, 2017.

Bauer, Matthias, and Lisa Ebert. "Ambiguous Heroes in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. A Qualitative and Quantitative Reading of 5 Authors and Ten Novels." Ambige Helden. helden. heroes. héros. E-Journal zu Kulturen des Heroischen: Special Issue, 6 (2019): eleven-25. https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de/data/151504

Bauer, Matthias, and Angelika Zirker. "Whipping Boys Explained: Literary Annotation and Digital Humanities." Literary Studies in the Digital Age: An Evolving Anthology. Ed. Ray Siemens and Kenneth M. Cost. December 2015. https://dlsanthology.commons.mla.org/whipping-boys-explained-literary-annotation-and-digital-humanities/

Bauer, Matthias, and Angelika Zirker. "Explanatory Notation of Literary Texts and the Reader: Seven Types of Bug." International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 11.ii (2017): 212-32. https://doi.org/ten.3366/ijhac.2017.0193

Bauer, Matthias, Gabriel Viehhauser, and Angelika Zirker. "Zwischenräume. Kommentierende Annotation und hermeneutische Bedeutungserschließung in digitalen Texten." Digitale Literaturwissenschaft. Ed. Fotis Jannidis. Stuttgart: Metzler [to appear].

Brooks, David Grand. "Ambiguity, the Literary, and Close Reading." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Civilisation 12.four (2010), article ix. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol12/iss4/ix.

Brown, Matthew D. "I'll Have Mine Annotated, Please: Helping Students Brand Connections with Texts." The English Journal 96.four (2007): 73–78.

Devereux, Cecily. "'A Kind of Dual Attentiveness': Close Reading after the New Criticism." Rereading the New Criticism. Ed. Miranda B. Hickman and John D. McIntyre. Columbus, OH: Ohio Land Upward, 2012. 218-30.

DiYanni, Robert. "Reading Responsively, Reading Responsibly." Critical Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Robert DiYanni and Anton Borst. Hokoken, NJ: Wiley, 2017. 3–23.

Dickens, Charles. The Chimes. A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books. Ed. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst. Oxford: OUP, 2008. 85-162.

Duchac, Joseph (ed.). The Poems of Emily Dickinson: An Annotated Guide to Commentary Published in English, 1978-1989. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1993.

Feito, J. A., and P. Donahue. "Minding the Gap: Note as Preparation for Give-and-take." Arts and Humanities in Higher Educational activity seven.three (2008): 295–307. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1474022208094413.

Gailey, Amanda A. "Teaching Circumspect Reading and Motivated Writing Through Digital Editing." University of Nebraska: Faculty Publications – Department of English. Paper 172 (2014): 191–99. digitalcommons.unl.edu​/​cgi/​viewcontent.cgi​?​article=​1172&​context=​englishfacpubs.

Gius, Evelyn, and Janina Jacke. "The Hermeneutic Profit of Annotation: On Preventing and Fostering Disagreement in Literary Analysis." International Journal of Humanities and Arts Calculating eleven.ii (2017): 233–54. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.3366/ijhac.2017.0194.

Hanna, Ralph, Three. "Annotation equally a Social Practice." Annotation and its Texts. Ed. Stephen A. Barney. Oxford: OUP, 1991. 178–84.

Kontje, Todd. "The Case for Close Reading after the Descriptive Turn." Distant Readings: Topologies of German language Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century. Ed. Matt Erlin and Lynn Tatlock. Rochester: Camden Firm, 2014. 133-52.

Lockett, Michael. "Shut Reading: A Synergistic Arroyo to the (Postal service)Modern Divide." Changing English 17.3 (2010): 399-409. https://dx.doi.org/one 0.i 080/1358684X.2010.528874.

Martens, Gunter. "Kommentar—Hilfestellung oder Bevormundung des Lesers?" editio 7 (1993): 36-50.

McCarty, Willard. "A Network with a Thousand Entrances. Commentary in an Electronic Age?" The Classical Commentary: Histories, Practices, Theory. Ed. Roy Thou. Gibson and Christina Shuttleworth Kraus. Leiden: Brill, 2002. 349-402.

McIntyre, John, and Miranda Hickman. "Epilogue: Toward a New Close Reading." Rereading the New Criticism. Ed. Miranda Hickman and John McIntyre. Columbus: Ohio Country Up, 2012. 231-38.

Mueller, Martin. "Scalable Reading." Scalable Reading (weblog), 29 May 2012. https://scalablereading.northwestern.edu/?page_id=22

Porter-O'Donnell, Ballad. "Beyond the Yellow Highlighter: Pedagogy Notation Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension." The English Journal 93.5 (2004): 82–89.

Senger, Hans Gerhard. "Der Kommentar als hermeneutisches Problem." Editio: internationales Jahrbuch für Editionswissenschaft 7 (1993): 62–75.

Shakespeare, William. Coriolanus. Ed. Peter The netherlands. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare'due south Sonnets. Ed. Katherine Duncan Jones. London: Thomson, 1997.

Small, Ian. "The Editor as Annotator every bit Platonic Reader." The Theory and Practice of Text-Editing: Essays in Accolade of James T. Boulton. Ed. Ian Small and Marcus Walsh. Cambridge: Loving cup, 1991. 186–209.

Weitin, Thomas. "Scalable Reading." Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 47 (2017): 1-6.

Wolfe, Joanna L. "Effects of Annotations on Student Readers and Writers." Proceedings of the Fifth ACM Briefing on Digital Libraries – DL '00, 02.06.2000 – 07.06.2000, San Antonio, Texas. Ed. Peter J. Nürnberg et al. New York: ACM P, 2000. 19–26.

Zirker, Angelika, and Matthias Bauer. "Guest Editors' Introduction: Explanatory Notation in the Context of the Digital Humanities." International Periodical of Humanities and Arts Computing. eleven.two (2017): 145-52. https://dx.doi.org/ten.3366/ijhac.2017.0189

blackweldernima2002.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.connotations.de/article/bauer-zirker-understanding-though-annotations-introductory-remarks/