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 Does this seem right? Any comments? Thanks, Scott Woods |
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