FEATURES OF Early Modern English 1500-1650

(to be used with Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, John Donne, or other writers or documents falling within this time period)

Features of Early Modern English (list is not exhaustive; see also van Gelderen)

1. Great Vowel Shift (next page of notes)—affecting LONG Vowels—handout2. Otherwise in short vowels there were only two changes: those in a and u

Chaucer’s a in cat (more open) had become ӕ in Shakespeare’s time (by 1600) (cat, thank)Chaucer’s u in the word full went through “unrounding” so that by Shakespeare’s time it sounded like the u in the word cut, sun.

3. Other changes: inflections on nouns: the only ones that remained by the Renaissance (say 1600) were plural endings and the possessive ending. (some –en plurals existed (oxen; housen; shoon)

4. One small development was in the “his genitive”—the adding of the word “his” after a noun to show possession. So In Shakespeare you get Mars his heart. The original genitive ending (is) on nouns had been pronounced as such, and at times that –is ending was written separately and took on an h so his. This persisted into the 18th century, but then disappeared. So, you had phrases like “the count his galley” instead of “the count’s galley”.

5. Adjectives: double comparatives and double superlatives are common.More larger; most unkindest. Also in Shakespeare the comparatives honester and violentest are seen. By modern English, the standard practice evolves so that monosyllabic adjectives add –er or est (such as brighter brightest), butpolysyllabic adjectives add the word more or most to the front instead (morefrugal, more poetic, more active)—esp. in the case of adjs. which have those endings: -al, -ic, -ive.)

6. Verbs. The auxiliary verb do appears in all negatives, yes-no questions that don’t have

an auxiliary or the verb to be. Examples: What do you see? Do not you love me? I do not sue to stand. (all quotes from Shakespeare)

Also, the verb do was used often instead of the progressive form (ing):Polonius asks, “What do you read, my lord?” instead of “what are you reading?” this progressive form becomes much more common in later English. (Progressive is I am walking; rather than I walk. They are camping; rather than they camp.)

by this time 16th c. the plural verb form had no ending: they walk. But also appearing in this period was an –s on the plural verb ending (present)Examples from Shakespeare: troubled minds that wakesWhose own hard dealings teaches them. This phenomenon still occurs in the 18th century at times.

-s vs. eth for the 3rd singular. In Shakesp’s time, both appeared. In Portia’s speech:It blesseth him that gives and him that takes… we see both endings.

Other features of English in this period: aureate (learned, Latinate terms) increase in the vocabulary. This was because of the resurgence of interest in classical Latin, and increased use of it in schools—young men training to be civil servants would have to compose letters and orations in Latin in this period. There was also some greater flexibility in grammar in this period. Sometimes adjectives appear as adverbs or nouns or verbs, noun appear as verbs, etc. Shakespeare has “stranger’d with an oath”—as one example.

See also, for many more examples of features of this period of English, Alfred Baugh, A History of the English Language, 3rd ed., (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1978), chapter 8: The Renaissance. Any later edition is also fine.

Some features of English in the 1600’s-1700’s

1. Periodic sentence, a carryover from the 1500’s, and Latin style:

A periodic sentence holds the meaning of the sentence to the end:

The hotel, through the addition of a state-of-the art fitness spa, extensive advertising, and weekend specials, has greatly expanded its customer base.

Sometimes the independent clause of a sentence is held over until the end:(modern examples)

By staying in bed-and-breakfasts, eating in restaurants off the beaten track, and taking advantage of public transportation, visitors may find the city more affordable.

Considering the free health care, the cheap tuition fees, the low crime rate, the comprehensive social programs, and the wonderful winters, I am willing to pay slightly higher taxes for the privilege of living in Canada.

1671 examples:

On wednesday, being in the time of intermission questioned about the case shee was in, with reference to the cause or occasion of it, shee seemed to impeach one of the neighbors, a person (I doubt not) of sincere uprightnesse before God…

The next day, being the Sabbath, whither upon any hint given her, or any advantage Satan tooke by it upon her, shee sent for mee in hast at noone, coming to her, shee immediately with teares told me that shee had belied the Devill, in saying shee had given him of her blood: &c: professed that the most of the apparitions shee had spoken of were but fansyes, as images represented in a dreame;

John Milton, Areopagitica (1643; on freedom of the press)

And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own? -- seeing no man who hath tasted learning but will confess the many ways of profiting by those who, not contented with stale receipts, are able to manage, and set forth new positions to the world. And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth, even for that respect they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they be of those whom God hath fitted for the special use of these times with eminent and ample gifts, and those perhaps neither among the priests nor among the pharisees, and we in the haste of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction, but resolve to stop their mouths, because we fear they come with new and dangerous opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them; no less than woe to us, while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the persecutors.

When a man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth.

For if they fell upon one kind of strictness, unless their care were equal to regulate all other things of like aptness to corrupt the mind, that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond labour: to shut and fortify one gate against corruption, and be necessitated to leave others round about wide open. If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man.

2. CAPITALIZATION—17th-18th centuries

Not all nouns were capitalized in the 1600’s, but it was a growing trend. In 1756, an influential spelling book instructed writers to capitalize every noun. By the 1790’s that practice was being dropped. Capitalization of nouns seemed to be at its peak in the 18th century. The more important nouns were capitalized, but there was no real consistency, and these could be subjective decisions. Concrete objects were capitalized, and areas of study, or disciplines. Eventually printers did away with excessive capitalization feeling that it crowded the page.

1. The Long S

2. A preference for the “plain style” in prose —influenced by the development of the sciences and rationalism; the use of the plain style was encouraged by Puritans in the 1600’s. The plain style does not refer to simple sentences as much as the removal of excessive emotion, enchantment and imaginative qualities from language. The shift was away from mystical concepts of style towards skeptical concepts of style (particularly in the 17th century). The movement was away from the magical, occult, or mystical worldview of the Renaissance (Dr. Faustus, Macbeth) towards a sparer, more rational concept of language and style. This was part of a larger view of earlier periods in European and English history as credulous, and given to superstition, fancy, and mystery . [Examples abounded in earlier writings, of magic, emblems, spirits floating around like in the Tempest or in Arthurian texts, monsters, visions, and strange cosmic influences.] 17th century philosophy rejected the awe, passion, and wonder of the earlier periods and emphasized instead austerity, skepticism, rationalism, and politeness. The goal was a “mathematical plainness” and “primitive purity” in style.