It looks like the punctuation in Scott's copy of the sonnet matches the _Riverside Shakespeare_, which is a good edition, but even in a good edition, punctuation of Elizabethan textx is open to many questions. This is especially true of not only semi-colons, but also of commas. It seems clear that most of the punctuation of the various quartos & folios is the work of their editors rather than the author, whose actual intent must always be interpreted.
 
It's curious that this came up just as my students are finishing up their study of Jane Austen's _Pride & Prejudice_. We had a discussion the other day about Austen's use of commas, especially how they often seem so very different from from the basic comma rules of today and how confusing it sometimes is to the students.
 
And yes, navigating through W.S.'s meanings is very satisfying -- and doing so as an actor is not so very different for me as doing so as an English teacher. I'd love to go back four hundred years and listen to Shakespeare's actors rehearsing his texts.
 
Paul
 "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).


________________________________
From: "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 8:23:36 PM
Subject: Re: Sonnet grammar analysis help


Ed and Paul,
 
I don’t know who edited the edition Scott is using, but you are clearly right that the semi-colons are open to question.  I think a modern editor was trying to encode sentence structure into a sonnet that would cause problems for students.  Doing so is always risky since building in structure is also building in meaning.  I think the editor got it right, but I’d feel more comfortable with Shakespeare’s punctuation, at least as we have it in the 1609 edition.  The sonnets should be read aloud, and a first reading is inevitably rough.  It takes a few tries and some thought to read it in a way that makes good sense and hangs together well, even if it isn’t necessarily the sense Shakespeare’s contemporaries would have made of it.
 
I agree, Paul, that the “then” is the hinge on which the sonnet turns.
 
Any time I’ve sat down with a Shakespeare sonnet, I’ve found working out the meaning and how he achieves his very remarkable effects a very satisfying effort.  And sometimes it is a bit of work.
 
Herb
 
From:Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edgar Schuster
Sent: 2009-03-18 20:14
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sonnet grammar analysis help
 
Wouldn't the semicolons be even more "open to question"?  I don't mean to suggest that they are "wrong," but they were a relatively new mark in Shakespeare's time, I believe.
Does anyone know who is responsible for the punctuation of the sonnets that we possess?
 
Ed S
 
On Mar 18, 2009, at 7:24 PM, Paul E. Doniger wrote:


Herb & Scott,
 
I've always held that the main clause of this one sentence sonnet, as Herb suggests (if I'm reading you rightly), appears in the third quatrian: "(Haply) I think on thee." It's the implied "then" statement that follows the when statement that opens the sonnet ("When in disgrace ......., [then] I think on thee.").  This, it seems to me, is the main point of the entire sonnet and is explained more fully by the final couplet.  By the way, I'm not at all convinced by the punctuation, which in Shakespeare is often open to question anyway, especially the comma after line #9, which I think is still a continuation of the previous thought, not an introduction to the main clause that follows it.  What do you think?
 
Paul
 
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).
 
 

________________________________

From: "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:03:57 PM
Subject: Re: Sonnet grammar analysis help
Scott,
 
I think I’d treat “Yet…thee” as a main clause as well, not as adverbial.  Yet acts as a coordinating conjunction and so also gets used sentence-initially to set up a contrast with a preceding thought.  There’s a single complex adverbial clause comprising the first two quatrains.  The third quatrain begins with the main clause of that sentence and is itself a coordinate clause with “and.” The third quatrain is set off by a semi-colon because of the preceding serial commas..  The closing couplet is also set off with a semi-colon, perhaps because of the initial “for” and the close logical link between it and three quatrains.  A sonnet in one sentence.  Not many poets have pulled this off so well.
 
Of course, the semicolons are the interpretation of an editor, unidentified.  In the 1609 facsimile (http://ia311343.us.archive.org/3/items/shakespearessonn00shakrich/shakespearessonn00shakrich.pdf), all lines but the last end in commas, although the punctuation at the end of the first quatrain is ambiguous.  I can’t make out on the screen whether it was meant to be a comma or a period, but I suspect the former.
 
Herb
 
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
Sent: 2009-03-18 14:53
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Sonnet grammar analysis help
 
List,
Please let me know if you think I'm basically correct with my analysis or where I might be more correct or clear.
 
Adverb clause in italics
Independent clauses in bold
participial phrases in < > with participle underlined
noun clauses in [ ]
adjective or relative clauses in {  }
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
<Wishing me like to one more rich in hope>,
<Featur’d like him>, <like him with friends possess’d>,
<Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope>,
<With [what I most enjoy] contented least>;
Yet <in these thoughts myself almost despising>,
Haply I think on thee,—and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day <arising
From sullen earth>, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
     For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
     {That then I scorn to change my state with kings}. 
 
Does this seem right?  Any comments?
 
Thanks,
Scott Woods 

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
 
= To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" 
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" 
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/