Thomas Campion’s iambic and quantitative Sapphic: Further evidence for phonological weight in Elizabethan English quantitative and non-quantitative meters

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-401
Author(s):  
Jennifer Roberts-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Metrical Theory ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Successful Adaptation ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Moraic Theory ◽  
Iambic Pentameter ◽  
Thomas Campion

Fulfilling a central goal of a generation of Elizabethan English metrical theory often referred to as the ‘quantitative movement’, Thomas Campion succeeded in demonstrating the role of syllable quantity, or phonological weight, in Elizabethan iambic pentameter. Following Kristin Hanson (2001, 2006), this article parses Campion’s scansions of Early Modern English syllables, according to moraic theory, into resolved moraic trochees. The analysis demonstrates that (1) Campion distinguished between syllable weight (syllable quantity) and stress or strength (accent) in Early Modern English; (2) Campion prohibited syllabic consonants in English iambic pentameter, despite the fact that they were attested in Early Modern English as a whole; (3) in a successful adaptation of the Latin rule of ‘position’, as described by William Lily and John Colet’s Short Introduction of Grammar (1567), Campion re-syllabified coda consonants followed by vowels; and (4) Campion employed syllabic elision as a means of avoiding pyrrhic syllable combinations that resulted in non-maximal filling of long positions in a line of English iambic pentameter. His two iambic pentameters – the ‘pure’ and the ‘licentiate’ – are both accentual and quantitative meters that, in accordance with moraic theory, integrate stress and strength with syllable weight. He contrasted stress and weight in the quantitative Sapphic lyric ‘Come let us sound with melodie’ (Campion, 1601). Hanson’s (2001, 2006) reconsideration of the role of syllable quantity in Elizabethan metrical theory and Elizabethan poetry should be continued.

scholarly journals Compensatory Lengthening in OT and DOT: Loss of Dorsal Fricatives in Middle
or Early Modern English

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-61
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Kleban
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
Syllable Weight ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
Working Solution ◽  
Vowel Lengthening ◽  
Compensatory Lengthening ◽  
Lexical Phonology

The loss of dorsal fricatives in English held significant consequences for the adjacent tautosyllabic vowels, which underwent Compensatory Lengthening in order to preserve a syllable weight. While the process appears to be regular in descriptive terms, its evaluation handled within standard Optimality Theory highlights the ineffectiveness of the framework to parse both the segment deletion and two weight-related processes: Weight- by-Position and vowel lengthening due to mora preservation. As Optimality Theory has failed to analyse the data in a compelling manner, the introduction of derivation, benefitting from the legacy of Lexical Phonology, seems inevitable. The working solution is provided by Derivational Optimality Theory, which assumes a restrictive use of intermediate stages throughout the evaluation.

scholarly journals Pain and Surgery in England,circa1620–circa1740

2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine A. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Sex Difference ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Early Modern English

AbstractThe scholarship on the discussion and role of pain in early modern English surgery is limited. Scholars have given little consideration to how surgeons described and comprehended pain in their patients’ bodies in early modern England, including how these understandings connected to notions of the humours, nerves and sex difference. This article focuses on the attention that surgeons paid to pain in their published and manuscript casebooks and manuals available in English,circa1620–circa1740. Pain was an important component of surgery in early modern England, influencing diagnosis, treatment and technique. Surgeons portrayed a complex and multi-dimensional understanding of their patients’ bodies in pain, which was further connected to their portrayals of their professional ability.

scholarly journals Introduction

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Chris R. Kyle
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
Clerical Staff ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
English Society ◽  
Parliamentary History ◽  
The Impact

Early modern English Parliaments were institutional events: institutional because they occupied a significant role in the governance of the realm, and after the Reformation Parliament statute law became omnicompetent. Furthermore, they established and followed (more or less) fixed procedures and had a permanent clerical staff. However, they were also events, summoned and dissolved at irregular intervals by the monarch, at least until the passage of the Triennial Act in February 1641. The very nature of the assembly and its power, influence and role in English society and politics has been hotly debated by historians for many years and continues today to fill the pages of scholarly journals and the catalogues of publishers. No less controversial than the nature and role of the assembly is the impact and validity of its sources, official and unofficial. It is the aim of this introduction and the ensuing editorials and documents to discuss and deconstruct the nature of parliamentary sources and how they can be utilised in the study of parliamentary history.

The Mine and the Furnace: Francis Bacon, Thomas Russell, and Early Stuart Mining Culture

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 630-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cesare Pastorino
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
The World ◽  
Mechanical Arts ◽  
Mining Culture

AbstractNotwithstanding Francis Bacon's praise for the philosophical role of the mechanical arts, historians have often downplayed Bacon's connections with actual artisans and entrepreneurs. Addressing the specific context of mining culture, this study proposes a rather different picture. The analysis of a famous mining metaphor in The Advancement of Learning shows us how Bacon's project of reform of knowledge could find an apt correspondence in civic and entrepreneurial values of his time. Also, Bacon had interesting and so far unexplored links with the early modern English mining enterprises, like the Company of Mineral and Battery Works, of which he was a shareholder. Moreover, Bacon's notes in a private notebook, Commentarius Solutus, and records of patents of invention, allow us to start grasping Bacon's connections with the metallurgist and entrepreneur Thomas Russell. Lastly, this paper argues that, to fully understand Bacon's links with the world of Stuart technicians and entrepreneurs, it is necessary to consider a different and insufficiently studied aspect of Bacon's interests, namely his work as patents referee while a Commissioner of Suits.

scholarly journals Intensificatory Tautology in the History of English: A Corpus-based Study

2021 ◽  
pp. 007542422199909
Author(s):  
Victorina González-Díaz
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Structural Reorganization ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Noun

This paper explores the development and establishment of intensificatory tautology (specifically, size-adjective clusters, e.g., “ great big plans,” “ little tiny room”) in the history of English. The analysis suggests that size-adjective clusters appear in the Late Middle English period as a result of the functional-structural reorganization of the English noun phrase. It is only towards the end of the Early Modern English period that they start to become (relatively) productive in the language, and in Present-Day English that they acquire a wide(r) intensifying functional range (i.e., adjective modifier, emphasizer, degree intensifier) and become associated with informal, spoken-based registers. More broadly, the paper suggests that more research is needed as regards the role of collocation in processes of intensifier creation in the noun phrase and, more generally, as regards how collocation interacts with word-formation processes in this context.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document