This weekend, for fun, I'm conducting a little experiment. First, I'm going to type a sonnet from memory. Then, I'm going to see how the first published version on EEBO records the same work. Finally, I'll check the published scholarly edition that I'd point my students toward, if I were to teach the sonnet. Here's the first part:
Not at first sight, nor with a dribbed shot
Love gave the wound which while I breathe will bleed--
but known worth did, in mine of time, proceed
'til, by degrees, it had full conquest got.
I saw and liked; I liked--but loved not;
I loved; but straight did not what love decreed.
At length, to love's decrees, I, forced, agreed--
yet with repining at so partial lot.
Now, even that footstep of lost liberty
is gone, and now, like slave-born Muscovite,
I call it praise to suffer tyranny--
and so employ the remnant of my wit
to make myself believe that all is well,
while, with a feeling skill, I paint my hell.
[Sidney, Astrophil and Stella]
I chose this sonnet because I knew the punctuation and spelling [Muscovit?] would be interesting. Tomorrow, I'll dig up the first EEBO version that I can find, and we'll see where the differences are. Hopefully, we can also illustrate some of the word-level and sentence-level changes that could take place within a culture of manuscript transmission--which, interestingly, has much in common with the modern blogosphere.
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