[stylist] Milton: On Shakespeare

Fri Apr 3 06:57:52 UTC 2009

well John,
you are correct that was the earlier spelling of Shakespeare, or even 
shakespere s h a k e s p e r e.

but we're conversing in modern english.   here, at least on this list.

most of the pronounciation came through on Milton's poem you  sent.
jc

Jim Canaday M.A.
Lawrence, KS

At 11:24 PM 4/2/2009, you wrote:
>Jim:
>
>I am not sure what you meant by your message.  Were you trying to correct
>the spelling?  In Elizabethan English, Shakespear is the way it is spelled,
>and the way the name appeared in print until the early nineteenth century.
>Elizabethan English was in the process of moving away from the Norman
>tongue, whose roots are in French, which is why English had French
>word-endings and accents, even to this day, especially in British and
>Canadian usage--tyre, centre, honour, colour, etc.  All holdovers from the
>Norman reign of Brittany.  But Elizabethan writers were sometimes too
>aggressive in moving away from the Norman accents that certain parts of
>their speech and writing is more strictly "English" than even our own
>English today.  Take the verbatim text of Milton's "'On Time" which has the
>word "merely" instead of "merely"--this is "more" smooth English.  Or take
>"morall," with two l's, which was Milton's extra effort to make sure it is
>not "morale."
>
>Anyway, that was a wild time for English's development, and yes it was a
>mess, but part of the reason Milton was so famous and now not much read
>anymore is that he took advantage of the shifts in language so he could
>rhyme more stuff together, sometimes going one way, sometimes going the
>other way in the spectrum between more Norman and more English.  The result
>for the modern reader, unfortunately, is that some of what used to rhyme so
>well doesn't rhyme anymore.  This is why it's better, I think, to read the
>older versions, not the revised and modernized text.
>
>I wonder how "On Time" sounded to some of you through JAWS.
>
>John
>
>
>
>John
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>Behalf Of James Canaday M.A. N6YR
>Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 11:04 PM
>To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>Subject: Re: [stylist] Milton: On Shakespeare
>
>shakespeare
>s h a k e s p e a r e
>
>jc
>
>Jim Canaday M.A.
>Lawrence, KS
>
>At 08:47 PM 4/2/2009, you wrote:
> >ON SHAKESPEAR.  1630.
> >
> >
> >WHAT needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
> >The labour of an age in piled Stones,
> >Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
> >Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
> >Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
> >What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
> >Thou in our wonder and astonishment
> >Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
> >For whilst to th'sharne of slow-endeavouring art,
> >Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart                          10
> >Hath from the Leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
> >Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
> >Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
> >Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
> >And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,
> >That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
> >
> >No virus found in this outgoing message.
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> >6:09 AM
> >
> >
> >
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