poems with dashes and exclamation points

I beg you to momentarily throw out the rules of grammar you know so well (unless you’re a currently student in the USA, in which case the schools seem to have thrown out the rules of grammar from the lesson plan). That doesn’t mean this is a huge run-on sentence. If you were to see the entire speech from the Folio you would notice that there is only ONE period at the very end of the monologue. NOW that you are familiar with this excerpt of text - and are ready to begin making acting choices about it - take a look again at the Folio version. Familiarize yourself briefly with the first version. It doesn’t all seem “grammatically correct” does it? You might be a little confused trying to understand the text if all you had to go on was the First Folio. With base? With basenes Bastardie? base, base?Īfter you see the silly spellings take a look at the difference in punctuation. My minde as generous, and my shape as trueĪs honest Madams issue? Why brand they vs Lag of a Brother? Why Bastard? Wherefore base? Stand in the plague of custome, and permitįor that I am some twelue, or fourteene Moonshines My seruices are bound, wherefore should I There weren’t many definitive spellings back in the Elizabethan/Jacobean era. U’s become V’s and vice versa, and some spellings are different but don’t think too hard about it.

If you haven’t seen text from the Folio before, beware. He’s so mad! The following is the same text from the First Folio. With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? My mind as generous, and my shape as true,Īs honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base? Stand in the plague of custom, and permitįor that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines Here is an excerpt of an edited text from Act I, Scene 2 of King Lear from That may be well and good for the English student, but what about the actor? Are the editors helping thespians too? Let’s explore that, shall we? Scholars take it upon themselves to re-punctuate the text in order to make it comprehendible to the reader of their edition… to create a more familiar format of text. Capitalization was even different on a few words that aren’t at the beginning of a line or sentece. A bigger reason is that the punctuation isn’t really how we normally have it in modern times. So scholars sometimes try to “correct” the texts to make them as Shakespeare intended. One issue is that the surviving texts we have today in the form of Folios and Quartos may not necessarily reflect the punctuation Shakespeare wrote, but rather what the typesetter thought was best. “What’s wrong with the punctuation Shakespeare wrote?” The answer depends on who you ask. To students new to Renaissance texts this might seem rather odd. If you compare editions you will find that they are punctuated differently, some might look nothing alike they could even create different meanings. A similar question may occur for periods, semi-colons, question marks, and exclamation points as well.įor those who don’t already know, the edition of a play that you pick up at your local bookstore does not reflect the punctuation that Shakespeare wrote. Shakespeare’s text must answer many, many times while working. They didn't make the verses unreadable, use a comma, or not to use a comma? That is the question editors of Mr. On the whole, I'm very pleased with this book, except for the many mispellings that survived the editing process. I'd be reading along to the 'beat' of the poem and then suddenly, it was lost due to a too-short sentence or a word with too many syllables. It fascinates me how irregular her rhyme schemes are-when she bothers to use them. Then she'd pop out with something sharp and critical, sounding unexpectedly modern-very observant and unexpected. She has a very appealing and personal tone, like somebody you know, confiding in you. *laughs* That sounds critical, but I don't mean it to be. It's interesting how Emily could waver between conventional warbling over bees and robins, and then brood over death, death, and more death, at length, and often in an equally chirpy tone. I found this copy (marked down, of course) and since it had been edited to eliminate at least the dashes, grabbed it and proceeded to inhale. Lovely sentiments, I'm sure, but too many Hallmark cards have inured me. This one, in particular, has always made me gag: My only experience with Emily Dickinson previously was the few poems I'd had to read in school, so I'd thought of her as another typical New England nature/sentimental-type poet, understood her appeal for a certain reader, ground my teeth at all the dashes and exclamation points, and not thought about her work further. (who should be flogged for producing an edition with so many spelling errors in a finished product, good grief.)

Poems with dashes and exclamation points