Corpus & Data

The Plutarch Metaphor Observatory corpus combines diplomatic texts, structured IDs, and annotation metadata so every metaphor unit is traceable from source passage to analytic output.

Corpus scope

42 works · 18k metaphor loci

  • Moralia focus with select Vitae where cognition metaphors cluster.
  • Fragments normalized to standard abbreviations (e.g., De aud. 40D).
  • Each locus links out to translation refs, manuscript notes, and citation tokens.

Text preparation

Diplomatic ingest pipeline

  • Custom QDPX parser preserves paragraphing, speaker cues, and apparatus markers.
  • Witness alignment + stable IDs keep Explorer, Works, and exports in sync.
  • Automatic QA checks flag missing lemmas, duplicated spans, or orphan IDs.

Metadata graph

Linked coders & lexical data

  • Coding sessions log annotator, timestamp, and protocol version.
  • Lexical units carry lemma, role (source/target), and conceptual domain paths.
  • Paraphrases + freeform notes support qualitative follow-up in workshops.

Annotation protocol

Domains

Target/source hierarchy

Every metaphor unit records both domains with a hierarchical path (e.g., BODY → ORGAN → HEART). This enables cross-work comparisons, radial charts, and domain co-occurrence analysis.

Lexical roles

Token-level tagging

Tokens are tagged as source/target carriers, linkers, or elaborations. Lemmas sync with CLTK assets so we can export morphological bundles alongside the Shiny views.

Paraphrase layer

Coder interpretation

Annotators capture a short paraphrase plus optional note categories (emotion, epistemic stance, rhetoric). These strings feed the Works citation builder and future NLP experiments.

Workflow

Source

Text preparation

Import QDPX + diplomatic editions, normalize paragraph IDs, and attach bibliographic metadata.

Annotate

Metaphor coding

Dual annotators mark spans, domains, lemmas, and paraphrases following the Thinking of Thinking handbook.

Validate

QA + reconciliation

Automated checks highlight conflicts, then editors reconcile and freeze the release candidate.

Publish

Explorer & exports

Data powers the Metaphor Explorer, Works catalogue, and downloadable CSV / JSON bundles.

Access & reuse

Interactive

Metaphor Explorer

Navigate domains, coders, and paraphrases inside the Shiny dashboard. Launch the Explorer.

Works focus

Digital corpus of works

Browse essays with curated summaries, citation-ready references, and cross-links to annotation slices. Open the Works app.

Bulk data

Research exports

Need CSV/JSON dumps or API (beta) access? Email observatory@uw.edu.pl describing your use case and we will provision credentials.