BATS

During my archive work this past fall, I was asked to markup Copies D and L of Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793). At the time, I had also recently reread Visions for other research, and it lead contemplating about what Blake attempted to convey through only illustration.

Last year, I traded my work with archived issues of Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly for new tasks in text and image markup of Blake’s illuminated books. Last month, I began writing markup “without a net,” as we say. With Katherine Calvin’s guidance, I am learning to describe individual watercolor drawings without recourse to a previous editor’s text. So, rather than thinking comparatively, I consider only the image at hand, and I have to familiarize myself more thoroughly with the body of search terms The Blake Archive uses to describe and tag images.

Under the skilled eye of Katherine Calvin, I have completed training on illustration markup. With her help, I have gained practice in the art of seeing and of describing what I see, without inserting my interpretations. My introduction to the process of using templates to reflect on the new (to me) plate and spot the differences–a skill set that I first developed reading Highlights magazines–went smoothly. As I learned the ropes, there was only one instance where I thought the template itself was wrong.

The Oxford comma is having its moment in the spotlight in recent news, after it was used to clinch a legal case in favor of the five drivers in O’Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy who, according to the interpretation of policy in the absence of the comma, were therefore found to be eligible for overtime pay. And grammar geeks on the side of the Oxford comma have been rejoicing.