Introduction

The Romantic Period Poetry Archive, or RPPA [Listen] for short, is a new open access digital platform of global Romantic-period poetry. Global here in the sense of Felicity Nussbaum's definition of the "Global 18th century", namely as a spatially and conceptually expanded paradigm in which dialogue and exchange rather than influence and reception are the dominant categories.² RPPA comprises a full-text poetry database and an open scholarship platform. It embraces both traditional modes of scholarly research and output, such as the creation of scholarly editions, and digital modes of research and publication, such as computationally-augmented analysis, visualizations, network analysis, knowledge modelling, and more.

Approach

Comparative in nature, RPPA conceptualizes Romanticism as a global, deeply interconnected phenomenon. It embraces a Romantic Weltliteratur by bringing well- and lesser-known poets, their poems and contexts from all parts of the world into conversation, and thus encourages the telling of bigger stories. This “zooming out” not only brings texts, authors, languages, and cultures into conversation, but also highlights the (frequently non-linear) modes of transmission, circulation, and reception of literature (understood here in global terms as the expressions of a culture in a variety of forms). These matters will be considered alongside the conversations the texts enter into with each other, directly, or much more frequently, indirectly.

Scope

RPPA participates in movements that aim to address issues of scale in academic Romanticism by expanding the Romantic literary canon. Unrestrained by the limitations of traditional print publications, RPPA comprises various literary and non-literary genres of Romanticism from all nations throughout the long Romantic century.³ As a networked effort, RPPA links the literary practices, interrelations, and contexts of Romantic-period poetry. It connects these nodes reflexively as well as to various internal and external contexts.

Features

• RPPA will assemble an extensive and open-ended archive of TEI/XML-encoded full-text poems (both original and in translation) and their contexts;
• RPPA is transdisciplinary and intermedial, transcending literature, and embracing wider cultural production;
• RPPA considers Romanticism in global, transnational contexts and foregrounds its multi-lingualism and -culturalism;
• RPPA adopts a positive conceptualization of translation as the “closest” form of reading, one that many Romantics considered a vital part of their literary labours;
• RPPA facilitates and supports comparison as a method by providing tools that situate Romantic-period poetry in its international and interdisciplinary contexts;
• RPPA fosters collaboration and participation to turn obstacles to the study of global Romantic-period poetry (such as “distant” reading and, unavoidably, limited contextual knowledge) into opportunities for learning;
• RPPA encourages new research into global Romantic-period poetry and showcases ways to integrate RPPA into the curriculum;
• RPPA incorporates digital humanities approaches as a form of comparative literary study.

Implementation

RPPA employs digital methods from the multilingual Digital Humanities and the Semantic Web.

• Multilingual DH: A combination of ML/AI- and NLP-approaches is our starting point for the detection of formal poetic features and points of contact more generally (shared poetic genres and devices, semantic features such as motifs, themes, plots, topics, characters, and types of intertextuality) within and across literatures. It is however through inviting input from and seeking collaboration with domain experts from various traditions, that we hope to address some of the main challenges of "distant reading".
• Semantic Web: RPPA is built on the Semantic Web, it embraces Linked Open Data (LOD) standards and methodologies. RPPA is powered by an ontologically underpinned, ever-expanding knowledge base called PRISMS, drawing on a number of domain-specific ontologies (CIDOC-CRM, OntoPoetry, and INTRO). This shared framework provides a unified mechanism for the cross-linguistic representation of the poems while maintaining the ability to describe them adequately within their cultures and poetic traditions. It also facilitates the modelling of poetic networks, circles, and schools.

Presentations

• Huber, Alexander. "The Romantic Period Poetry Archive project". Libraries, Lives and Legacies, 'Old Books, New Media'–Digital Humanities Showcase, University of Liverpool and online, 13-14 April 2023.
• Huber, Alexander. "Modelling Contextuality in Poetry Corpora ontologically". Fugitive Poetry / poésie fugitive in 18th-century Europe: Genre, Media and Networks workshop, Voltaire Foundation, St. Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, 11-12 April 2024.

Timeline

RPPA is a 5-year, independently-funded research project. It will run from late 2020-2025. As with other projects conceived as long-term archival endeavours, all research outputs of the project will be preserved and made accessible indefinitely. RPPA is designed to be a networked effort: expressions of interest to connect with and participate in the project are welcome at any time. As of late 2021, RPPA has adopted rapid prototyping and open development methodologies. The project phase remains unchanged and will end in 2025, when the project will have reached beta stage. Regular updates about work packages, milestones, and the overall progress of the project will be posted on this website.

Outcome

The expected outcome of this project is a fuller understanding, appreciation, and engagement with the poetry of the global Romantic period. As a project, RPPA prioritizes the idea of “wholeness” of an archival approach over analytical accounts of established narratives. Wholeness not in the sense of one grand or better narrative or history, but rather in acknowledging, collecting, and aggregating many individual stories in one bigger space. A space for the exploration of new contexts and the construction of new global texts⁴ that cast a fresh light on the seemingly familiar. This project provides that space.