#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys

from lxml import etree

root_name = 'article'
namespace_uri = 'http://docbook.org/ns/docbook'

namespace_map = {None: 'http://docbook.org/ns/docbook'}

root_element = etree.Element("{%s}%s" % (namespace_uri, root_name), nsmap=namespace_map)

# Stefan, this is what I interpreted from your email:
root_element.tag = 'essay'

element_tree = etree.ElementTree(root_element)

element_tree.write(sys.stdout)
sys.stdout.write('\n')