{"id":852,"date":"2017-10-09T13:27:44","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T20:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/?p=852"},"modified":"2017-10-09T13:27:44","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T20:27:44","slug":"reverse-engineering-the-walt-whitman-archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/2017\/10\/09\/reverse-engineering-the-walt-whitman-archive\/","title":{"rendered":"Reverse Engineering The Walt Whitman Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

The <\/span>Walt Whitman Archive<\/span><\/a> is unique in how it attempts to to document such a large amount of the poet’s work, not just poems, as one would expect, but also includes Whitman’s journalism, personal letters, and the notes about his poem. However, it is well worth the effort to document all these aspects of the poet; Whitman lived a multi-faceted life that can not be summarized by his poetic publications. Here, the Walt Whitman archive attempts to present the various sides of Whitman that his writings and portraits have captured.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The breakdown of this website can be found in the about section of the online Archive. First let us examine the sources that were used to create this extensive collection. Of course, the directors must use the poetry that was published, however this include all 6 volumes of Whitman’s <\/span>Leaves of Grass<\/span><\/i>. The inclusion of all the different publications is to show the change in the Whitman’s works throughout the later part of his lifetime. In addition, the archive uses first hand notes of Whitman’s poems that document his editing process and his feelings about the works. However, some of the most interesting sources include the Whitman’s journalism from the his early life that started before his poetic works. Other sources include, his personal letters, both his own and the correspondents, short stories, single published and unpublished poems, and portraits. Another unique aspect of the archive is that it includes works about the author, such as biographies and analysis of the works in the collection.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Whitman archive has a textual based organization meaning the collections presented have a basis to specific works and primary sources. From this, the archive then employs a “spinal organization” that mirrors the organization of Whitman in his own works. This organization allows for various material, works and authors to be able to collaborate on a single piece. Further breakdown of the organization reveals that the pieces are not only organized by time but also by the linguistic elements that are in the piece. Along with that, since Whitman was a pioneer in poetry, the linguistic components that furthered the poetic field are used to structure the organization. However, there are still connections between the technical and thematic elements in order to show how these elements combined to give Whitman a unique style and voice. This combines to give the audience the opportunity to analyze the texts in many different perspectives.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The archive is presented to us a homepage with easy to navigate tabs that indicate where works, audio, portraits, and other information about Whitman can be found. So if a student wished to access the early journalism of Whitman, they would click on <\/span>Published Works, Periodicals, Editorials and Journalistic articles<\/span><\/i>. From there the audience can choose which publication they would like to explore and the article within it. The presentation is simple text in order to clearly communicate the substance of the works and make it possible for the audience to easily understand and access.This is in contrast with many other digital archives we have already encountered in this class which placed an emphasis or a visual presentation of the works. However, the Whitman archive uses clear text and HD pictures and audio where possible in a simple format that is closer to the traditional archives many scholars are accustomed to. In the “About” the site indicates it uses HTML and other free source codes such as XML and METS. The reason for this is to encourage contribution from various collaborators such as other free archives, librarians, and scholars who wish to contribute. This allows for a more compact and efficient database that is no cluttered. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Walt Whitman Archive is unique in how it attempts to to document such a large amount of the poet’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/classes\/dh101f17\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}