Jeez, Harry.  You think we haven’t noticed??

On May 19, 2020, at 5:46 PM, Harry Berger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Has Judith ever been properly recognized for all her wonderful contributions to Spenserland she’s mad for SO MANY years? In my opinion, she’s the smartest of us all. and the most learned. And one of Spenser’s very best readers.      Harry

On May 17, 2020, at 9:25 PM, Elisabeth Chaghafi <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Perhaps not quite what you're after, Hannibal, but I've definitely seen 'evil' used in a context where you would have expected to see 'ill', e.g. here (this example is non-poetic, but it's particularly clear): https://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/detail/FOLGERCM1~6~6~362748~130788

"... my cosin Rolston whose estate you are desirous to knowe which sure in my iudgment is very miserable he is ten times so euill as he was att his first comminge his speache is allmost taken from him by reason of som impediment in his throte he can scarsly vtter three wordes without breathinge and that small strengh which he had is allmost consume"

The two words were semantically very close in the 16th century (I think after that they start to diverge a bit more, though I'm not 100% certain about this), so your hunch about 'ill' is very likely to be correct. Presumably it was also meant to rhyme with the monosyllabic pronunciation of 'deuil', which is a lot more common - after all, that would be too good a rhyme to miss, wouldn't it? 'Spirit' and 'sprite' are also used almost interchangeably (at least in the 16th century; again, I'm less certain after that) - I'm sure I've come across cases in which someone copied a passage from a text that contained the word 'spirit' and turned it into 'sprite' and vice versa. If you're interested, I could try to find an example of this too.

Also, not entirely on topic, but the 1591 edition of Complaints has several 'visual' rhymes, i.e. spellings of rhyme words that are quite unconventional but that have evidently been used to echo the spellyng of the other rhyme word and bring the two closer together. Some of those even seem to have been introduced at the correction stage. So either those typesetters weren't indifferent or they had been given instructions to watch out for the spellings of rhyme words...

Elisabeth

On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 9:11 PM Hannibal Hamlin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Sidneieans, Spenserians, and fellow travellers,

I thought I'd pose to you a question that has occurred to me many times over the years. Has anyone studied the ways in which words are obviously intended to be pronounced differently from their printed forms in early modern texts? I don't mean by this the Crystals and their "original" pronunciation claims, but rather cases where, for instance, meter obviously requires contraction or elision, even thought the printing doesn't indicate this. For one particularly prominent example, "evil" very often appears in contexts where it must be a monosyllable, but how was it actually pronounced? Omitting the "i" ("ev'l") is no help, since the result is practically unpronounceable. My hunch has always been that it was pronounced "ill," but I've never seen anyone comment on this. A similar case is the monosyllable for "spirit," which could be either "sprite," "sprit," or "spreet" (I've always favored the first).

Assuming anyone else finds this interesting, I'd welcome thoughts or references.

Wishing you health.

Hannibal

--

Hannibal Hamlin
Professor of English
The Ohio State University

Author of The Bible in Shakespeare, now available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199677610.do

164 Annie & John Glenn Ave., 421 Denney Hall
Columbus, OH 43210-1340
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