From 71e162de954691d5ea9eee5e435223e46b78e600 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Alice BRENON <alice.brenon@ens-lyon.fr>
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2022 09:36:27 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Wrote the intro, changed the structure a little bit

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diff --git a/ICHLL_Brenon.md b/ICHLL_Brenon.md
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 ---
 title: The specificities of encoding encyclopedias: towards a new standard ?
 author: Alice BRENON
+header-includes:
+	\usepackage{textalpha}
 ---
 
 # Dictionaries and encyclopedias
 
-If the term "encyclopedia" was originally devised as a "meta-quality" to
-describe the mastery of "all" (meaning 7 classical arts) fields of knowledge.
+In common parlance, the terms "dictionaries" and "encyclopedias" are used as
+near synonyms to refer to books compiling vast amounts of knowledge into lists
+of definitions ordered alphabetically. Their similarity is even visible in the
+way they are coordinated in the full title of the *Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire
+raisonné des sciences des arts et des métiers* published by Diderot and
+d'Alembert between 1751 and 1772 and which is probably the most famous work of
+the genre and a symbol of the Age of Enlightenment.
+
+## "Encyclopedia"
+
+If the word "encyclopedia" is nowadays part of our vocabulary, it was much more
+unusual and in fact controversial when Diderot and d'Alembert decided to use it
+in the title of their book.
+
+The definition given by Furetière in his *Dictionnaire Universel* in 1690 is
+still close to its greek etymology: a "ring of all knowledges", from *κύκλος*,
+"circle", and *παιδεία*, "knowledge". This meaning is the one used for instance
+by Rabelais in *Pantagruel*, when he has Thaumaste declare that Panurge opened
+to him "le vray puys et abisme de Encyclopedie" ("the true well and abyss of
+Encyclopedia"). At the time the word still mostly refers to the abstract concept
+of mastering all knowledges at once. Furetière adds that it's a quality one
+is unlikely to possess, and even seems to condemn its search as a form of
+hubris: "C'est une témérité à un homme de vouloir posséder l'Encyclopédie"
+("it is a recklessness for a man to want to possess Encyclopedia").
+
+Beyond this moral reproach, the concept that pleased Rabelais was somewhat dated
+at the end of the 17\textsuperscript{th} century and attacked in the
+*Dictionnaire Universel François et Latin*, commonly refered to as the
+*Dictionnaire de Trevoux*, as utterly "burlesque" ("parodic"). The entry for
+"Encyclopédie" remained unchanged in the four editons issued between 1721 and
+1752, mocking the use of the word and discouraging his readers to pursue it. In
+that intent, he quotes a poem from Pibrac encouraging people to specialize in
+only one discipline lest they should not reach perfection, based on an
+argumentation that resembles the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none". It
+is all the more interesting that the definition remains unaltered until 1752,
+one year after the publication of the first volume of the *Encyclopédie*. The
+Jesuites who edited *Dictionnaire de Trevoux* frowned upon the project of the
+*Encyclopédie* which they managed to get banned the same year by the Council of
+State on the charge of attempting to destroy the royal authority, inspiring
+rebellion and corrupting morality in general. There is much more at stake than
+words here, but the attempt to deprecate the word itself is part of their fight
+against the philosophers of the Enlightenment.
+
+The attacks do not remain ignored by Diderot who starts the very definition of
+the word "Encyclopédie" in the *Encyclopédie* itself by a strong rebuttal. He
+directly dismisses the concerns expressed in the *Dictionnaire de Trevoux* as
+mere self-doubt that their authors shouldn't generalize to mankind, then leaves
+the main point to a latin quote by chancelor Bacon, who argues that a
+collaborative work can achieve much more than any talented man could: what could
+possibly not be within reach of a single man, within a single lifetime may be
+achieved by a common effort throughout generations.
+
+History hints that Diderot's opponents took his defense of the feasability of
+the project quite seriously, considering the fact that they got the
+*Encyclopédie*'s priviledges to be revoked again six years after its publication
+was resumed and that its remaining volumes had to be published illegally until
+its end in 1772.
+
+However, in their last edition in 1771 the authors of the *Dictionnaire de
+Trevoux* had no choice but to acknowledge the success of the encyclopedic
+projects of the 18\textsuperscript{th} century. In this version, the definition
+was entirely reworked, mildly stating that good encyclopedias are difficult to
+make because of the amount of knowledge necessary and work needed to keep up
+with scientific progress instead of calling the effort a parody. It credits
+Chamber's *Cyclopædia* for being a decent attempt before referring anonymously
+though quite explicitely to Diderot and d'Alembert's project by naming the
+collective "Une Société de gens de Lettres" and writing that it started in 1751.
+Even more importantly, two new entries were added after it: one for the adjective
+"encyclopédique" and another one for the noun "encyclopédiste", silently admitting
+how the project had changed its time and the relation to knowledge.
+
+## A different approach
+
+If encyclopedia are thus historically more recent than dictionaries they also
+depart from the latter on their approach. The purpose of dictionaries from their
+origin is to collect words, to make an exhaustive inventory of the terms
+used in a domain or in a language in order to associate a *definition* to them,
+be it a translation in another language for a foreign language dictionary or a
+phrase explaining it for other dictionaries. As such, they are collections of
+*signs* and remain within the linguistic level of things. Entries in a dictionary
+often feature information such as the part of speech, the pronunciation or the
+etymology of the word they define.
+
+The entry for "Dictionnaire" in the *Encyclopédie* distinguishes between three
+types of dictionaries: one to define *words*, the second to define *facts* and
+the last one to define *things*, corresponding to the distinction between
+language, history, and science and arts dictionaries although according to its
+author, d'Alembert, each has to be of more than just one kind to be really good.
+In the full title of the *Encyclopédie*, the concept is more or less equated by
+means of the coordinating conjunction "ou" to a *Dictionnaire raisonné*,
+"reasoned dictionary", introducing the idea of encyclopedias as dictionaries
+with additional structure and a philosophical dimension.
+
+Back to the "Encyclopédie" article we read that a dictionary remaining strictly
+at the language level, a vocabulary, can be seen as the empty frame required for
+an encyclopedic dictionary that will fill it with additional depth. Given how
+d'Alembert insists on the importance of brevity for a clear definition in the
+"Dictionnaire de Langues" entry, it is clear that for the *encyclopédistes*,
+encyclopedia aren't superior to dictionaries but really depart from them in
+terms of purpose.
 
-Attacked by TREVOUX in its four editions from 1721 to 1752 (1721, 1732, 1743,
-1752): qualifies the word a parody ("burlesque") + // "jack of all trades, master
-of none".
-
-The attacks aren't ignored by Diderot who acknowledges the impossibility for a
-single ordinary man but explains the trick behind the encyclopedia: a
-collaborative work accross disciplines and even generations. + Quotes Bacon, as
-philosophical caution. In that sense, they don't refer to the same concept: a
-sum of knowledge one man could possess or not vs. a collective epistemologic
-strategy. + ulterior motive of "jesuits" vs.  (Enlightenment) philosophers.
-
-The last editions from 1771, one year before the end of EDdA's edition
-mentions the projects and adds entries for two new words: the adjective
-ENCYCLOPÉDIQUE and the noun ENCYCLOPÉDISTE. It refers explicitely to Diderot &
-d'Alembert's project although anonymously.
-
-Dictionaries are from the origin of the concept books that gather and define
-words, and are as such collections of *signs*. There are "translation"
-dictionaries that define terms in one source language by means of a term in a
-destination language the reader is supposed to know
+## La Grande Encyclopédie
 
-The "dictionnaire" article is surprisingly small but distinguishes between
-defining "words", and defining "things" (+ third other distinction, definining
-"facts" which is associated to History).
+After emerging from dictionaries during the 18\textsuperscript{th} century,
+encyclopedias became a fertile subgenre in themselves which kept evolving over
+the following centuries. One of offsprings of the *Encyclopédie* from the
+19\textsuperscript{th} century is entitled *La Grande Encyclopédie, Inventaire
+raisonné des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts par une Société de savants et de
+gens de lettres* and was published between 1885 and 1902 by an organized team of
+over two hundred specialists divided into eleven sections. The aim of
+[CollEx-Persée project DISCO-LGE](https://www.collexpersee.eu/projet/disco-lge/)
+was to digitize and make *La Grande Encyclopédie* available to the scientific
+community as well as the general public. A previous version was partially
+available on
+[Gallica](https://gallica.bnf.fr/services/engine/search/sru?operation=searchRetrieve&version=1.2&collapsing=disabled&query=%28dc.title%20all%20%22La%20Grande%20encyclop%C3%A9die%22%29%20and%20dc.relation%20all%20%22cb377013071%22&rk=42918;4#)
+but lacked in quality and had not been fully OCRized.
 
 # The *dictionaries* TEI module
 
+Producing *interoperable* and *reusable* data is paramount for them to be useful
+for future other scientific projects. These are the two last key aspects of the
+[FAIR](https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/) principles (*findability*,
+*accessibility*, *interoperability* and *reusability*) which we strive to
+enforce as a guideline for efficient and quality research. It entails using
+standard formats and a standard for encoding historical texts in the context of
+digital humanities is XML-TEI, collectively developped by the *Text Encoding
+Initiative* consortium. It consists in a set of technical specifications under
+the form of XML schemas, along with a range of tools to handle them and training
+resources.
+
+The XML-TEI standard has a modular structure consisting in optional parts each
+covering specific needs such as the physical features of a source document, the
+transcription of oral corpora or particular requirements for textual domains
+like poetry, or, in our case, dictionaries.
+
+In what follows, we need to name and manipulate XML elements. We choose to
+represent them in a monospace font, in the standard XML autoclosing form within
+angle brackets and with a slash following the element name like `<div/>` for a
+[`div` element](https://tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/en/html/ref-div.html).
+We do not mean by this notation that they cannot contain raw text or other XML
+elements.
+
 ## Content
 
-`<entry/>` 
+### The `<entry/>` element
+
+The central element of the *dictionaries* module is the `<entry/>` element meant
+to encode one single entry in a dictionary, that is to say a head word
+associated to its definition. Although it may be contained by `<entryFree/>` or
+`<superEntry/>` elements which are respectively tools to relax some constraints
+on `<entry/>` elements or to group several of them together, it is the 
 
 - hom
 - model.entryPart.top
@@ -46,7 +166,15 @@ defining "words", and defining "things" (+ third other distinction, definining
 - pc
 - sense
 
-## Limits
+# A new standard ?
+
+Studying the content of *La Grande Encyclopédie* and considering several
+articles in particular, we identify structures specific to encyclopedias which
+are not covered by the *dictionaries* module presented above. We hence conclude
+that this module is not able to encode arbitrary encyclopedic content and
+propose a new encoding scheme.
+
+## Nested structures
 
 ### The `<entryFree/>` option
 
@@ -81,25 +209,19 @@ model.phrase: individual words or phrases (within § so still no)
 
 => + free text, but still no structure ! (<div/>, <p/>…)
 
-# Proposals
-
-## Bend the semantics
-
-## Custom schema
-
 ## The *core* module
 
-# In context
+### Implemented
 
-## La Grande Encyclopédie
+### Left-overs
 
-## The constraint of automated processing
+## The constraints of automated processing
 
-## Our choice
+## Comparison to other approaches
 
-### Implemented
+### Bend the semantics
 
-### Left-overs
+### Custom schema
 
 # Conclusion
 
-- 
GitLab