The In Memoriam Web is a redesigned and much amplified Storyspace version of hypertext materials originally created at Brown University for use on the IRIS Intermedia system. Like the Dickens Web, which Eastgate Systems also publishes, the In Memoriam Web represents a small portion of the documents created for Context32, the body of hypertext materials supporting student work in a survey of English literature and other courses. Like the Dickens Web, this hyperdocument (or metatext) contains contributions by both faculty and students, and it also shares with the Dickens Web contextual materials, including discussions of British religion, and Victorian politics and science.
The In Memoriam Web differs from the Dickens Web, however, in several significant ways: first, it consists of an entire literary text plus supporting materials and not just of the contextualizing materials themselves. Furthermore, this text, In Memoriam, embodies a kind of proto-hypertextuality that benefits from presentation in Storyspace. Finally, Jon Lanestedt, who imported most of the documents into Storyspace and created the great majority of the links, has created a much amplified version of the original Intermedia web -- one that allows us to read the poem along many axes, following one chain of imagery after another in a way extremely difficult, if not impossible, in print versions.
The In Memoriam Web represents an experiment in adapting to electronic hypertext a literary work that appears to predict such a new information technology. It does not purport to be a full scholarly edition that would replace those in print. We have obviously relied heavily upon Christopher Ricks s invaluable editions and that of Marion Shaw and Susan Shatto, and we have also made extensive use of the Eversley edition of Tennyson s poems and the poet s memoirs, edited by his son.
This entire project, which has gone through many stages, began during the 1987-88 academic year as an experiment in an undergraduate seminar on Victorian poetry, whose members created a few documents about Tennyson s poem. Between January and April 1988, the six members of English 263, a graduate seminar in Victorian poetry (Maryanne Ackershoek, Chatchai Atsavapranee, Mark Gaipa, Laura Henrickson, Helen Kim, and Mark McMorriss) added links and documents to the body of materials already online. Students from the undergraduate seminar had created approximately a dozen graphic or text documents and linked them to individual sections of In Memoriam. I had already created an overview file for the poem itself, basing it on the one for Tennyson, and to this student consultants, room monitors, and I linked individual sections and a few of the relevant motifs. In the course of the next few months the members of the graduate seminar added more than a hundred documents, each commenting specifically on one or more sections of the poem and on one another's work. Contributions by individual students appear with their full names. The contributions by research assistants and faculty at other institution are identified by their initials. Shoshana Landow [SML] worked extensively June to September 1988 on the In Memoriam project, adding commentary, links, and translations.
In addition to containing the text of Tennyson s poem, commentaries on entire sections, and annotations to specific passages, the In Memoriam Web also includes contextual materials, some of which had been originally created for Context32 between 1985 and 1987: David Cody [DC], who has taught at the Universities of California, Oklahoma, and, as a Fulbright Professor, at Hokkaido in Japan, wrote many of the brief general essays. Kathryn Stockton [KBS], currently Assistant Professor of English at the University of Utah, wrote most of the original materials on feminism and literary theory. Anthony S. Wohl [ASW], Professor of History at Vassar College, has contributed a substantial amount of material on the subjects of Victorian public health, and race and class issues in Victorian England. These materials include both published and unpublished work by Professor Wohl.
George P. Landow [GPL], professor of English and Art at Brown University, who first conceived the In Memoriam Project, edited all the materials, chose the images, and with Jon Lanestedt [JL], doctoral candidate at the University of Oslo, designed the Web. Lanestedt, who has done most of the work in creating this Storyspace version of the In Memoriam Web, made most of the basic design decisions and created most of the links.
We welcome submissions from anyone who might wish to contribute to future versions of the Web.
Providence, Rhode Island March 1992
Last modified 19 February 2010