Breath, Life, and Manuscripts.
In my college theatre training (why not in English?), I was taught to read Shakespeare with his original intent: aloud. To that end, Shakespeare's sparing punctuation was used only to indicate pauses for breath or pauses for the turn of thought. Shakespeare was most likely to use the plainest of marks the majority of the time: the comma or the period. Everything else is likely to have been added by well-meaning scholars on down the line.
Whatever punctuation marks may actually have come from the Bard's own pen (and the Riverside Shakespeare is one acknowledged arbiter of that question) should be followed more or less like this:
comma - caesura, a pause for thought to change or turn but not a pause for breath.
period - full stop, a pause for breath and for a new thought.
colon - full stop, a pause for breath and for a new but related thought.
For writers and readers, nuances matter a great deal. Thus were born
the semi-colon (to loosely connect independent clauses that inform one another),
the em dash (to indicate interruption or a strong parenthetical turn),
the ellipsis (to show how often the mind trails off, or to create suspense), and...
...for modern poets and prose writers, the use of odd letter or word spaces (see e.e. cummings), line spaces, and section breaks as punctuation in themselves.
When I teach punctuation (and I must), I teach it as being rooted in the body, in our breath and in the quicksilver trails and switchbacks of our brains. Such teaching is cumulative and reflexive, because it must be paired with students' discovery of their own voices, their own manners and mannerisms, their adaptability within the framework of the standard and the acceptable.
All the rules and systems are only guidelines for living language: younger than me, most of my students are steeped in a culture really no longer mine, yet anchored in the past. They must decide for themselves how to speak and how to write. And I must help them decide where to punctuate what is really theirs alone to say.
Lest I forget an important mark, there is the question mark, which I mistakenly always thought was alternatively called the cipher.
In the use of the question mark, we can most plainly see the relationship between punctuation and the spiritual state.
For the adding of a question mark indicates a full stop and a brief cessation of breath. A waiting in silence for an answer.
This is even so with a rhetorical question. Isn't it?
Breath ultimately distinguishes life from death, and is the hallmark of spiritual practices. Breathing can calm or excite us, or conversely reflects our state of being.
Is punctuation really a set of semaphores for the location of our souls?
As always, I am rushed today. Consider this entry an unfinished one...
For more, see a lively treatise on the function and history of punctuation here;
Paul Robinson's opinionated and informative The Philosophy of Punctuation;
News from the Apostrophe Protection Society; and
Something for the kids: Punctuation Paintball.
[last four links all via Complete Translation]
Curious what's up at The Truth Hurts? Click here.
In my college theatre training (why not in English?), I was taught to read Shakespeare with his original intent: aloud. To that end, Shakespeare's sparing punctuation was used only to indicate pauses for breath or pauses for the turn of thought. Shakespeare was most likely to use the plainest of marks the majority of the time: the comma or the period. Everything else is likely to have been added by well-meaning scholars on down the line.
Whatever punctuation marks may actually have come from the Bard's own pen (and the Riverside Shakespeare is one acknowledged arbiter of that question) should be followed more or less like this:
comma - caesura, a pause for thought to change or turn but not a pause for breath.
period - full stop, a pause for breath and for a new thought.
colon - full stop, a pause for breath and for a new but related thought.
For writers and readers, nuances matter a great deal. Thus were born
the semi-colon (to loosely connect independent clauses that inform one another),
the em dash (to indicate interruption or a strong parenthetical turn),
the ellipsis (to show how often the mind trails off, or to create suspense), and...
...for modern poets and prose writers, the use of odd letter or word spaces (see e.e. cummings), line spaces, and section breaks as punctuation in themselves.
When I teach punctuation (and I must), I teach it as being rooted in the body, in our breath and in the quicksilver trails and switchbacks of our brains. Such teaching is cumulative and reflexive, because it must be paired with students' discovery of their own voices, their own manners and mannerisms, their adaptability within the framework of the standard and the acceptable.
All the rules and systems are only guidelines for living language: younger than me, most of my students are steeped in a culture really no longer mine, yet anchored in the past. They must decide for themselves how to speak and how to write. And I must help them decide where to punctuate what is really theirs alone to say.
Lest I forget an important mark, there is the question mark, which I mistakenly always thought was alternatively called the cipher.
In the use of the question mark, we can most plainly see the relationship between punctuation and the spiritual state.
For the adding of a question mark indicates a full stop and a brief cessation of breath. A waiting in silence for an answer.
This is even so with a rhetorical question. Isn't it?
Breath ultimately distinguishes life from death, and is the hallmark of spiritual practices. Breathing can calm or excite us, or conversely reflects our state of being.
Is punctuation really a set of semaphores for the location of our souls?
As always, I am rushed today. Consider this entry an unfinished one...
For more, see a lively treatise on the function and history of punctuation here;
Paul Robinson's opinionated and informative The Philosophy of Punctuation;
News from the Apostrophe Protection Society; and
Something for the kids: Punctuation Paintball.
[last four links all via Complete Translation]
Curious what's up at The Truth Hurts? Click here.
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