How to Navigate this Collection
Table of Contents
The Table of Contents acts as the main entry point into this project and can be accessed by clicking the TOC icon
at the far left of the Scalar header. There you’ll find sections containing information about the project as well as the collection of letters around which the project is built.Within the Table of Contents, letters in this collection are divided up by sender and then arranged chronologically. The bulk of the letters can be found in the section “Voltaire and Frederick the Great,” which is itself broken into subsections “Voltaire to Frederick the Great,” and “Frederick the Great to Voltaire,” within which letters are organized chronologically. The remainder can be found in the section “Voltaire and the Community,” within which there are individual letters arranged chronologically as well as sub-sections for "Von Bassewitz to Voltaire" and "Voltaire to d’Argental." Clicking the arrow to the right of a title within the Table of Contents will reveal sub-content. Clicking on the arrow to the right of the title “Voltaire and Frederick the Great,” for example, will reveal the two subsections “Voltaire to Frederick the Great,” and “Frederick the Great to Voltaire.” Clicking on the arrow to the right of the titles for "Voltaire to Frederick the Great,” and “Frederick the Great to Voltaire" will, in turn, reveal the letters in those subsections.
Letters
Translation vs. Transcription
Each letter in this collection contains both a translation and a transcription. Accessing a letter via the Table of Contents will take you to its translation. To access the transcription, simply click on “See a transcription of this letter” at the top of the page.
Annotations
Some translations will be marked up with expandable notes, highlighted in green. Clicking these notes will generate pop-ups containing additional information on the word or words highlighted.
Navigation
At the bottom of each translation, you may find several navigational items. If the letter is part of a series (e.g. “Voltaire to Frederick the Great”) you'll find a “Continue to…” button allowing you to navigate to the next letter in the series. If the letter has been tagged by one or more keywords (see below) those keywords will appear as hyperlinks at the bottom of the translation.
Keywords and Indexes
Letters in this project are also connected to each other via keywords. These keywords appear as hyperlinks at the bottom of letters (see Navigation above).
Keywords
Clicking on the hyperlink for a keyword will take you to a page containing information on that topic. For instance, clicking on the keyword “Frederick William I of Prussia,” at the bottom of the letter “Voltaire to Frederick the Great - 1742 May 15” will take you to the keyword page “Frederick William I of Prussia” containing information on Frederick the Great's father. Clicking on the keyword “Paris,” at the bottom of the letter will take you to the keyword page “Paris” containing information on the city.
Below the informational content on a keyword page, you'll also find ways to navigate to other letters connected to that keyword or to other keyword pages. Keyword pages are thus part of an informational network connecting letters to people and places. As illustrated in this graphic, you can, from a keyword page, navigate down to all letters tagged by a particular keyword, for instance, all letters tagged by “Frederick William I of Prussia” or “Paris.” However, you can also navigate up to the an index containing that particular keyword, for instance up to “Index of People” from the “Frederick William I of Prussia” keyword page or up to “Index of Places” from the “Paris” keyword page. Thus, you can climb up from any individual letter to a keyword to which it is connected or all the way up to an overall index containing all keywords of a particular type (e.g. people or places) and then back down, in any direction, from there.
Indexes
From an Index page, one can see all keywords contained in that index as well as all letters tagged by each of those keywords. For instance, from the “Index of Places,” one can see a list of all places mentioned in letters within this collection, and below each place, a list of letters in which it is mentioned.
From each Index page one can also switch to other indexes (e.g. from "Index of People" to "Index of Places") as well as navigate to various visualizations of the collection.
Visualizations
Finally, this project offers several ways to visualize the collection of letters as a whole. These visualizations can be found either on any Index page (e.g. “Index of People” or “Index of Places”) or via the Table of Contents (Navigating the Letters in this Collection > Ways to Visualize this Collection).
These visualizations include the following:
A Map of Voltaire's Correspondence offers an interactive map of all places referred to in the collection.
A Timeline of Voltaire's Correspondence offers an interactive timeline containing all letters in this collection situated within key cultural, intellectual and political events of the eighteenth century.
A Visualization of Voltaire's Correspondence offers a network visualization connecting all letters, keywords, and indexes in this collection. This visualization allows one to see, conceptualize and navigate, on a global scale, the total set of relationships between letters, keywords and indexes in this project.
A Gallery of Voltaire's Correspondence offers a thumbnail gallery of all pages in all letters in this collection.
Table of Contents Redux
Now that we’ve covered some additional structural affordances of this project – keywords and visualizations – let’s take another look at the Table of Contents. The first thing to note is that if one clicks the arrow to the right of an actual letter in the Table of Contents, one can see the keywords that tag it. For instance, if I click the arrow to the right of the title for the letter “Voltaire to Frederick the Great - 1742 May 15” in the Table of Contents (Voltaire and Frederick the Great > Voltaire to Frederick the Great > Voltaire to Frederick the Great - 1742 May 15) I’ll see that it’s tagged by “Paris,” “Frederick William I of Prussia,” and “Charles-Irénée Castel, abbé de Saint-Pierre.” I can thus go directly to any of these keyword pages from within the Table to Contents.
The second thing to note is that because Indexes and Visualizations for this collection are contained in the Table of Contents, one can also access their content there. So for instance, one can click on the arrow to the right of “Index of Places” (Navigating the Letters in this Collection > Indexes in this Collection > Index of Places) and see the full list of places that are keywords in this collection and navigate to any of them from the Table of Contents. One can also click the arrow to the right of a Visualization. For instance one can click the arrow to the right of A Timeline of Voltaire’s Correspondence (Navigating the Letters in this Collection > Ways to Visualize this Collection > A Timeline of Voltaire’s Correspondence) and see all events and letters in chronological order and navigate to any of them from the Table of Contents.
