How did we approach our analysis?
In order to delve into these translations of the Aeneid, it was necessary to look closely at minute details and find ways to compare across languages. We did this by careful markup of the texts in XML, taking care to note figurative language, and important grammatical elements of the sentences. In particular, we marked up verbs, nouns, pronouns, and names. These are all elements which may vary in translation due to different language barriers and strengths. For example, we encountered words like the Latin verb “obicitur,” which was translated into the verb “zeigt” in German, but into a verb and a preposition “burst over” in English. We chose not to investigate adjectives because, while they do enhance a story in many ways, they do not particularly change the structure or plot across translation as much as these other elements. Our schema, which guided the XML markup, as well as our actual XML files, are linked below.
LATIN XML ENGLISH XML SCHEMA GERMAN XML SPANISH XML