Ligatures are characters, letters, or types containing two or more letters. Ligatures follow the spatial rule of a letter signifying the state, middle, or end of a word. For example, the “long s” was used at the beginning or middle of a word whereas the “round s” was used at the end of a word. If modern day English was read by readers of the Renaissance era, it would be read differently. The word manslaughter in modern day English would be read as “mans laughter” in the Renaissance era. The round “s” would signal the end of the word, which would be “mans” in this case, and “laughter” would be considered as a separate word. The use of the “long s” (ſ) allowed for the tying together of two words to reduce the type required. An example of this would be the word “show”, which in the Renaissance period, would be written as “ſhow”. The tying together of the “long s” and the “h” in this word allowed for the use of three types instead of four. The ligatures of the Renaissance era were also used for beauty purposes as the people of the time considered aesthetics to be of high importance, finding it pleasing to have print imitate handwriting. The ligatures used in the Renaissance era make it difficult for modern readers of Renaissance literature to comprehend what is being said and often triggers anxiety and frustration in the process.
A great amount of non-regulated spelling and punctuation existed in Renaissance writing, and the exact reason for this is still not understood today. For example, in Sir Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, it can be noted that there are many spelling variations. For example, the word “deer” was written as “deere” in Renaissance literature, and it is unknown to present day readers whether the author intended to refer to the animal “deer”, or gesture of affection, “dear”. This variation of spelling is known as a pun in modern English; words that are pronounced or spelled the same which have different meanings. In the Renaissance era, a word was known to have one meaning but various spellings. The variations in literature of the Renaissance era cause a sense of confusion in the mind of present day readers, which leads to misinterpretation of the text being read, as well as the context in which a certain word is being used.
It is unknown whether these spelling variations resulted from carelessness of the poet or from misprinting by the printers themselves, which disallows us to rid ourselves entirely of the anxiety we may experience. However, punctuation of the sixteenth century was inconsistent and often originated by the printer. The variants in the copies of literature in the Renaissance era resulted from the printing press of the time. The limited technology of the sixteenth century did not allow for photocopies to be made, leading to the use of set types. A set type was made of the original work of literature and it was then pressed onto the paper being used for the copy. If the printer reviewed the copy and detected any errors by comparing the copy to the manuscript, the print run began, and the type set was corrected and used for the proceeding copies. However, copies printed containing errors were kept and sold as the printing process was lengthy, tedious, and very expensive. Editors in the present day era would have discarded copies printed with errors, and take for granted the technology available in the present age which was not available in the Renaissance era.
Readers of modern literature often have trouble understanding what they are reading and therefore experience anxiety when attempting to comprehend the more complex literature of the Renaissance time period. Renaissance literature had many more rules than modern English literature regarding ligatures and letter placements, spelling variants, conventions and printing. Placement of letters in the Renaissance time created different sounds whereas the modern alphabet contains two more letters to create the same effect. Also, modern English literature contains distinct rules to differentiate between vowels and consonants. Writing was written with fancy ligatures in the Renaissance era in order to enhance its beauty where as effective modern literature is filled with literary devices. Spelling variations from the Renaissance era are much harder to comprehend than those used in modern literature, and cause confusion when trying to understand the context in which the certain spelling is being used. English literature has lost its strength over the years and has been simplified and made easier to comprehend, therefore causing anxiety within people of modern day society attempting to read Renaissance literature.
From Renaissance to Modern Literature:
Loss of Understanding; Creation of Anxiety
Malvinder Garcha
Mrs. Vritsios
ENG 4U0- J