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One Aspect of Milton's Spelling: Idle Final “E”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John T. Shawcross
John T. Shawcross*
Affiliation:
Douglass College, New Brunswick, N.J.
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Extract

Milton's spelling has evoked much comment and speculation since Jonathan Richardson noted certain inconsistencies in the early editions of Paradise Lost. Yet no complete study has previously been reported. Because of the problems of transmisson of text to or through scribes and because of the potential alterations of compositors, printed works offer inconclusive and only corroborative evidence of how Milton spelled. The place to start is with spellings in Milton's own hand. Accordingly I have prepared a complete concordance of all English words or abbreviations found in holograph materials. Included, therefore, are all words which were deleted from a final text and all spellings which were altered in any way. From my resulting full examination of the orthography I present here, because of the limitations of space, only the evidence concerning Milton's use or omission of idle final “e.” All manuscript words to which an idle final “e” may have been attached and all words showing inconsistencies in the use of idle final “e” are reported. These words are divided into the following categories: 1) uncompounded and uninflected words (that is, root words), 2) words or groups of words which ordinarily would have been considered under category one but which evidence spelling that classifies them as exceptional, 3) suffixed and compound words, and 4) inflected words (including those in category two).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 1963 , pp. 501 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1963

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References

1 Discussion of various aspects of the spelling will be found in the following: Jonathan Richardson, Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost (London, 1734); Capel Lofft, ed., Paradise Lost, Books I and n (London, 1792); David Masson, ed., Poetical Works (London, 1890), Vol. in; H. J. C. Grierson, The Poems of John Milton (London, 1925), introductions to Vols. I and n; H. C. Beeching, The Poetical Works of John Milton (New York, 1928), introduction; Helen Darbishire, The Manuscript of Paradise Lost, Book I (Oxford, 1931); George W. Whiting, “Milton's Rules for -ed,” MLN, XLIX (1934), 166–168; Edward S. Parsons, “The Authorship of the Anonymous Life of Milton,” PMLA, L (1935), 1057–64; H. Cecil Wyld, “The Significance of -n and -en in Milton's Spelling,” Englische Studien, LXX (1935), 138–148; W.H.J., “ ‘Paradise Lost’: ‘Lose’ or ‘Loose’,” N&Q, 174 (1938), 438; G.G.L., “ ‘Paradise Lost’: ‘Lose’ or ‘Loose’,” N&Q, 176 (1939), 89; Donald G. Stillman, “Milton as Proof Reader,” MLN, LIV (1939), 353–354; C.W. Brodribb, “ ‘Paradise Lost’: i. 756: Capital v. Capitol,” N&Q, 179 (1940), 370–371; Harris F. Fletcher, ed., John Milton's Complete Poetical Works (Urbana, 194348), Vols, I–IV; Helen Darbishire, ed., The Poetical Works of John Milton (Oxford, 1952–55), Vols, I–II; Robert M. Adams, “The Text of Paradise Lost: Emphatic and Un-emphatic Spellings,” MP, LII (1954), 84–91; Robert O. Evans, “Milton's Use of ‘E're’ in Paradise Lost,” N&Q, 199 (1954), 337–339; B. A. Wright, ed., Poems (Everyman's Library, 1956).

2 Manuscript materials include those in the Trinity MS (Arcades, four complete or partial drafts of At a Solemn Music, two drafts of a Letter to a Friend, Sonnet 7, On Time, Upon the Circumcision, Comus with its various re-writings and corrections, Lycidas with its various rewritings and corrections, a title for Sonnet 8, Sonnet 9, Sonnet 10, subjects and plans for dramas, two drafts of Sonnet 13, Sonnet 11, two drafts of Sonnet 14, Sonnet 12, Sonnet 15, and a note positioning New Forcers), in the Commonplace Book, in the Family Bible (seven entries and marginalia), and incidental lines and emendations (lines 1022–23 of Comus in the album of Count Camillus Cardouin, corrections to Lycidas in two copies of Justa Edovardo King naufrago, two lines of poetry on a letter from Henry Lawes, corrections to Comus, 1637, in the Bridgewater presentation copy, changes in a translation of a letter from Princess Sophia, an entry in the Order Books of the Council of State, and a marginal attestation in a document in the Public Record Office).

Sources of manuscript materials are: Trinity MS, William Aldis Wright, ed., Facsimile of the Manuscript of Milton's Minor Poems (Cambridge, 1899); Commonplace Book, Alfred Horwood, ed., A Common-Place Book of John Milton (London, 1876); Bible, John Milton, 1608–1674. Facsimiles of Autographs and Documents in the British Museum (London, 1908), and Frank A. Patterson, gen. ed., The Works of John Milton, “The Columbia Milton” (New York, 1931–38), XVIII, 274–275; album, Fletcher, Vol. iv, addendum for Vol. i; Lycidas corrections, Hugh C. H. Candy, “Milton Autographs Established,” The Library, Fourth Series, xni (1933), plate I between p. 192 and p. 193; letter from Lawes, Horwood, p. xvi; Comus corrections, Carl II. Pforzheimer Library of English Literature, 1475–1700, ed. Emma Unger and W. A. Jackson (New York, 1940), Vol. ii, addenda for #714, pp. 1281–82; translation of a letter from Princess Sophia, Facsimiles of National Manuscripts from William the Conqueror to Queen Anne (Southampton, 1868), Part iv, letter XLVI (S.P. 18/1/142); entry (April 30, 1650) in an Order Book of the Council of State (S.P. 25/6), Columbia Milton, XIII, 507 (facsimile in my possession through the kindness of the Secretary of the Public Record Office); attestation in S.P. 23/101/925 in PRO, Samuel Leigh Sotheby, Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton (London, 1861), Plate xvi, No. 11, opposite p. 112.

3 Full citations of all spellings discussed and totalled throughout this paper may be found in my unpublished dissertation, “Milton's Spelling: Its Biographical and Critical Implications,” New York University, 1958. Slight differences in totals exist due to inclusion of certain manuscript materials discussed separately in the dissertation, to rearrangement of material, and to typographical errors which had escaped notice. I am indebted to Professor William R. Parker for advice, help, and his own study of Milton's spelling, in conjunction with both my dissertation and the present paper. I can only hope that ramifications of this study will increase our knowledge of Milton's life and works.

4 The “printed editions” used are Of Reformation, 1641; Of Prelatical Episcopacy, 1641; Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence against Smectymnuus, 1641; The Reason of Church Government, 1642; An Apology against a Pampfilet call'd A Modest Confutation, 1642; The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 1643 and 1645; Of Education, 1644; The Judgement of Martin Bucer, 1644; Areopagitica, 1644; Telrachordon, 1645; Colasterion, 1645; Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, 1649 and 1650; Observations upon tlie Articles of Peace, 1649; Eikonoklastes, 1649 and 1650; and new materials in Poems, 1673, written before 1651. Differences in states of Animadversions reported by Rudolf Kirk in Complete Prose Works of John Milton, Don M. Wolfe, gen. ed. (Yale Univ. Press, 1953), Vol.I, and in states of Apology reported by Milford C. Jochums in his facsimile edition (Urbana, 1950) have been noted. I use only the 1st and 3rd editions of Divorce because of its four editions and the numerous states of editions 2 and 3. The 1st edition was greatly changed and augmented in 1644, but the 3rd edition seems at times to represent Milton's practices better than the 2nd edition. The 3rd edition copy reported is that of the New York Public Library, Reserve Room, shelf mark KC, 1645, “Third Edition.” (See also the textual remarks on Divorce in G. Blakemore Evans' review of the 2nd volume of the Yale edition of the Complete Prose Works [1959] in JEGP, Lix [1960], 498–502.) As a copy of the original edition of Articles is unavailable, I use the printed text of the Columbia Milton, vi, 242–271, checked, however, against the text of Merritt Y. Hughes in the Yale edition of the Complete Prose Works (1962), Vol. iii.

5 Arcades: “look,” 1; Sonnet 7: “task-maisters,” 14; Letter, draft two: “psuit,” 28; Comus: “agat,” 893; “bad,” 639; “blank,” 452; “brisk,” 671; “dark-vaild,” 129; “dauntless,” 650; “fog,” 433; “fruit,” 186; “respit,” 553; “took,” 834; Lycidas: “answer,” 96; “dark,” 101; “laureat,” 151 (2); “meek,” 177; “sunk,” 102, 172. Note that five are pro-nunciational, for the omission of final “e” shortens the pre ceding vowel (“agat,” “bad,” “laureat,” “respit”); that ten end in “-k”; and that one is a full reduction (from “fogge”).

6 Although the time of entry for the following groupings probably overlapped, the general order of entry seems to be:

With “e” Without “e”

p. 35 draft one of Paradise Lost; draft two; draft three; additions to draft three; “other Tragedies.” 20 1

p. 36 “The Deluge … Thamar” in left column; right column to “Coma-zontes … or the Rioters.” 2 0

pp. 37–38 British subjects in order; additions to subjects. 24 8

p. 36 “Theristria” to “Rehoboam 1 Reg 12” in right column; “Imbres … Ahab 1 Reg 22” in right column; detail under “Thamar” in left column. 1 0

pp. 39–40 “Abram from Morea”; “Baptistes”; “Sodom” on p. 39; “Sodom” on p. 40. 31 25

p. 39 additions to “Baptistes.” 1 8

p. 36 right column: “Abias Thersaeus … ”; “wher is disputed … ”; “beginning at … ”; “(See Lavater … ”; left column: “Elias in the mount” to “lamented by Jeremiah”; “Asa … her Idol”; “(D)ura … ”; “Hesechia ____” 2 8

pp. 40–41 additional subjects on p. 40; “Adams Banishment”; “Adam un-paradiz'd,” addition to beginning; two additions to “Adam unpara-diz'd” at bottom; addition to “Adam unparadiz'd” on p. 41; Scotch subjects. 8 16

pp. 38–41 additions to “Sodom” on p. 39; addition to “Sodom” on p. 38; addition to “Sodom” on p. 40; addition to “Sodom” on p. 41; title for “Sodom.” 3 4

p. 41 “Moabitides”; “Christus patiens.” 0 5

N.B.: some words with “e” reported in these totals (like “passe” and “Duffe”) did not reduce apparently until after 1642; see later for discussion.

7 Dating is that given by James Holly Hanford, “The Chronology of Milton's Private Studies,” PMLA, xxxvi (1921), 251–314, and Ruth Mohl, ed., “A Commonplace Book” in Complete Prose Works, Vol. i.

8 “Howre,” Sonnet 9, 13, was changed to “howr,” but “hour,” Bible, entry S, was changed to “howre.” Other exceptions are “impe,” Sonnet 15, 8; “come,” Note in Trinity MS; “neere,” Circumcision, 28, copied from the same spelling in the earlier version of the poem; and “there,” Letter from Princess Sophia.

9 In manuscript Milton spelled only “thire” and “thir.” As the latest manuscript occurrence in Sonnet 15, 7, shows, he had not discarded this spelling (“thir”). The single manuscript occurrence of “their,” Sonnet 15, 8, was, I believe, originally “her.” I have previously suggested that someone in error, not only for spelling but for meaning, changed “her” to “their”; see “Milton's Fairfax Sonnet,” N&Q, 200 (1955), 195–196.

10 The noun “breath” and the adjective “lo(a)th” are always so spelled.

11 The seemingly similar word is spelled “pearl.”

12 Not included are “fain” (“feign”), “forren” (“foreign”), and “sovran” (“sovereign”).

13 Milton always wrote “no” and “so.”

14 Probably the seemingly pronunciational “forhead” is in error (Comus, 733, and Lycidas, 171), for the conventional spelling occurs in Comus, 490 (line deleted).

15 The similar ending “-eer(e)” is not separated from the primary group of inflected words; I find one manuscript example of “-eers.” The possessive pronoun “theirs” does not occur in manuscript.

16 I include in totals the variant spellings of “always.”

17 Other words ending in “o” add “es” in the plural except for “Echo's,” Lycidas, 41.

18 Word totals for Divorce, Tenure, and Eikonoklastes, since they are itemized from two editions each, derive from the occurrences of the word spelled one way in both editions, the occurrences of the word spelled as a variant in one but regularly in the other edition (thus the word is counted twice—as standard and as variant), and the occurrences of the word found in one edition only. Therefore the total number of uses of a word in these pamphlets may actually be less than my totals indicate.

19 Omitted from these totals are obvious errors, “here-” and “mere-,” since they were never Milton's spellings, and compounds of the exceptional spellings noted before: “awfull,” “-ast-,” “-ild-,” and “-ind-.” Only “wastefull,” Reason, p. 60, appears with an internal “e.” Although “suddain-” occurs, “sudden-” would not appear with an internal “e” except by error. Neither “extreme-” nor “ex-tream-” is included; I find “extremely,” Colasterion, p. 19; Eikonoklastes (Edd. 1, 2), p. 33; (Ed. 2), p. 14; “extremly,” Tetrachordon, p. 6; and “extreamly,” Education, p. 7. Also omitted are all instances of “commandment(s),” since Milton never affixed an “e” to the root word; nevertheless fifteen examples with internal “e” and one with an apostrophe come through. Only “purposely” and “forehead” occur.

20 Some verbs ending “-ate” appear without “e,” but the numbers with “e,” the lack of manuscript authority, and the difficulty in justifying such deletion in pronunciation suggest that these are simply errors, perhaps through confusion with adjectival words. Interesting spellings, not included in previous totals, are the frequent omissions of “e” on “loos,” “choos,” “chois,” “purpos,” and “hous.” There are no examples of “female” without “e” in the materials used. Probably all these are variants which Milton at times wrote, but which he may not have preferred.

21 All words and statements relating to pronunciation have been checked against E. J. Dobson's English Pronunciation 1500–1700 (Oxford, 1957), two vols. I use standard phonetic symbols rather than Dobson's more precise, but less known, ones; for example, using Dobson's symbols “gon” would be given as [gnn].

22 The following table gives the number of occurrences of the two spellings of this word in the printed editions:

Neither manuscript nor printed examples bear out the speculation of stressed and unstressed forms. The compositors apparently simply altered the odd spelling of their copy to their own and more usual practice.