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Book: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition by William Shakespeare
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Authors: William Shakespeare
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Writing and speaking
The identity between Early Modern and Modern English can be illustrated from all areas of language structure - the writing system, the sound system, the grammar, the vocabulary, and the structure of the spoken or written discourse. However, it must be recognized that in the first two of these areas the identity is an artefact - the result of conventional editorial and performance practice. The Early Modern English system of spelling and punctuation is actually very different from that which we encounter in Modern English; but we would never guess from reading most editions. Just under half of the words in the First Folio have a spelling which is different from the one we know today. At the end of the sixteenth century the alphabet was still developing: the distinctions between u and v and between i and j were not fully established, so that we find vnuisited alongside vnvenerable and jigge alongside iigge. Conventions of word-spacing, hyphenation, sentence punctuation, and capitalization also displayed many differences from modern practice. And spelling was still extremely variable: about half the words which appear in the Folio appear in more than one version - some with half a dozen or more alternatives. Ancient , for example, appears as ancient, antient, aunchiant, aunchient, aunciant, auncient, and auntient. Spelling did not achieve its modern standardization until the end of the eighteenth century - but most editors silently modernize Folio and Quarto spelling and punctuation, with the aim of making the texts more accessible to the reader.
Nor would we ever guess, from the way in which the poems are read aloud and the plays performed, that the Early Modern English sound system (the vowels and consonants, the stress and intonation) was at a considerable remove from modern pronunciation. It is an area where precise conclusions are unattainable. Attempts to reconstruct the way people spoke, based on a study of rhythmical patterns, rhymes, spellings, and contemporary phonetic descriptions can take us so far, but leave us well short of the character of the original. From the nature of the rhythm of the poetic line (the metre ), for example, we can deduce that a syllable needs separate articulation, as in the opening lines of Henry V :
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention.
It has to be: ‘in-ven-see-on’. Similarly, it is the metre which motivates contrasting pronunciations of the same word in such cases as ‘Hence banished is banished from the world’ ( Romeo and Juliet , 3.3.19). And from the way in which words rhyme or pun, we can deduce an earlier pronunciation, as when wind is made to rhyme with unkind .
But rhymes and puns do not tell us the whole story. They tell us only that two words must have sounded the same; they do not tell us in what respects that ‘sameness’ exists. In many cases, we can clearly see a pun, but still be unclear how to pronounce it. When Cassius says ( Julius Caesar , 1.2.157-8):
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough
When there is in it but one only man
there is obviously some word-play intended - but is Rome being pronounced like modern room , or should room be like modern Rome , or was the Early Modern English pronunciation somewhere in between? Modern performances in ‘original voices’, based on research by historical linguists, are probably not too far away from the truth - at least, as far as the vowels, consonants, and word-stress contrasts are concerned; but there remain many uncertain areas. And the nature of the dynamic aspects of speech at the time (the intonation and tone of voice) is a matter of speculation. No modern accent corresponds, though the fact that the r was pronounced after vowels (as in fire) does tend to remind people of modern rural West of England accents, when they hear people attempt a Shakespearian pronunciation. Then, as now, there would have been many regional and class
Writing and speaking
The identity between Early Modern and Modern English can be illustrated from all areas of language structure - the writing system, the sound system, the grammar, the vocabulary, and the structure of the spoken or written discourse. However, it must be recognized that in the first two of these areas the identity is an artefact - the result of conventional editorial and performance practice. The Early Modern English system of spelling and punctuation is actually very different from that which we encounter in Modern English; but we would never guess from reading most editions. Just under half of the words in the First Folio have a spelling which is different from the one we know today. At the end of the sixteenth century the alphabet was still developing: the distinctions between u and v and between i and j were not fully established, so that we find vnuisited alongside vnvenerable and jigge alongside iigge. Conventions of word-spacing, hyphenation, sentence punctuation, and capitalization also displayed many differences from modern practice. And spelling was still extremely variable: about half the words which appear in the Folio appear in more than one version - some with half a dozen or more alternatives. Ancient , for example, appears as ancient, antient, aunchiant, aunchient, aunciant, auncient, and auntient. Spelling did not achieve its modern standardization until the end of the eighteenth century - but most editors silently modernize Folio and Quarto spelling and punctuation, with the aim of making the texts more accessible to the reader.
Nor would we ever guess, from the way in which the poems are read aloud and the plays performed, that the Early Modern English sound system (the vowels and consonants, the stress and intonation) was at a considerable remove from modern pronunciation. It is an area where precise conclusions are unattainable. Attempts to reconstruct the way people spoke, based on a study of rhythmical patterns, rhymes, spellings, and contemporary phonetic descriptions can take us so far, but leave us well short of the character of the original. From the nature of the rhythm of the poetic line (the metre ), for example, we can deduce that a syllable needs separate articulation, as in the opening lines of Henry V :
O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention.
It has to be: ‘in-ven-see-on’. Similarly, it is the metre which motivates contrasting pronunciations of the same word in such cases as ‘Hence banished is banished from the world’ ( Romeo and Juliet , 3.3.19). And from the way in which words rhyme or pun, we can deduce an earlier pronunciation, as when wind is made to rhyme with unkind .
But rhymes and puns do not tell us the whole story. They tell us only that two words must have sounded the same; they do not tell us in what respects that ‘sameness’ exists. In many cases, we can clearly see a pun, but still be unclear how to pronounce it. When Cassius says ( Julius Caesar , 1.2.157-8):
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough
When there is in it but one only man
there is obviously some word-play intended - but is Rome being pronounced like modern room , or should room be like modern Rome , or was the Early Modern English pronunciation somewhere in between? Modern performances in ‘original voices’, based on research by historical linguists, are probably not too far away from the truth - at least, as far as the vowels, consonants, and word-stress contrasts are concerned; but there remain many uncertain areas. And the nature of the dynamic aspects of speech at the time (the intonation and tone of voice) is a matter of speculation. No modern accent corresponds, though the fact that the r was pronounced after vowels (as in fire) does tend to remind people of modern rural West of England accents, when they hear people attempt a Shakespearian pronunciation. Then, as now, there would have been many regional and class
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