The Skaldic Project and Lexicon Poeticum

Abstract

This paper describes a digital project to edit the Old Norse poetic corpus known as skaldic poetry, composed between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. The Skaldic Project started in 1997 with the first editions published in 2007, and 75% of the corpus is now published in print and online. The long-term nature of the project, together with the complexities of the corpus and its manuscript and textual preservation, have meant that the digital resource has had a number of challenges to address. This article focuses on three of these challenges: the need to provide a large amount of material about the context of the poetry to contributors, including manuscript images; the need to provide an integrated editing and publication system capable of simultaneous updates by multiple editors and assistants; and instant digital access, online publication and a streamlined process for export for print publication. This article describes these processes and solutions, which encompass both human workflows as well as technical solutions. It demonstrates how the method adopted and data created has provided a foundation for further research projects based on the digital resource, including a lexicographic resource (Lexicon Poeticum) and an index of the complex diction of the corpus (Kenning Lexicon).