From Phoneme to Verse

A Digital Scansion Toolbox (and More)

Abstract

This article presents the methods and tools used to treat theatrical texts of the Golden Age to optimize them for digital analysis. The process departs from texts obtained in files of many different formats and ends up producing a CSV file suitable for distant reading analysis. The source files must be cleaned and prepared in different ways according to their own characteristics semi-manually. Once it is possible to identify the textual units, the work is automatically ordered in tabular format to represent the dramatic structure. Then the verses are scanned, and the results are added to the corresponding columns. A complete toolbox has been designed for the described purpose to carry out the tasks automatically once the source texts are prepared. However, it allows using its components individually so they can be employed for other different aims.