If there were a competition for the driest blogpost title, this would be a contender. Yet there is a particular interest in the punctuation of literary texts, an interest aroused in me by graduate studies (many years ago) in paleography and the editing of medieval texts - Oxford's solid philological tradition - and by a subsequent reading of Malcolm Parkes's Pause and Effect and John Lennard's The Poetry Handbook, which pays detailed attention to this rather esoteric aspect of poetic craft (Lennard studied with Parkes at some stage, I think).Punctuation matters. Careful writers - perhaps you and I on a good day - choose punctuation marks with the same care as they choose words. Broadly speaking these marks work in three ways - visually, aurally and logically. For example, the colon (1) helps us to see the segments of a sentence or period on the page, (2) creates an emphatic pause which we hear, and (3) suggests some logical connection between what precedes and follows it, thus guiding our understanding of the sense of a passage.
Too often, printers and editors alter authorial punctuation. But when we can be sure we are seeing the original (or at any rate, something roughly contemporary with the original, and thus conforming to many of the same conventions), it will repay our critical attention. Below I discuss the part punctuation plays in some lines from Milton. Familiar terms are used in the following ways, with bold and italics distinguishing where the same word is used to indicate the graphic mark or a sequence of text.
A colon (plural cola) indicates the mark :
A colon (plural cola) indicates everything written between cola, ie the segment of text which terminates in this mark (or a full stop).
A semi-colon (pl semi-cola) indicates the mark ;
A semi-colon (pl semi-cola) indicates the texts terminating in the mark ; or, again, with a terminal stop.
Similarly, a comma is the mark, and a comma (pl commata) refers to the words enclosed by commas.
A sentence is a grammatical statement with, normatively, a subject and verb which makes independent sense. It does not necessarily end with a full stop (though it normally terminates in one o the marks including a stop (?!;:.).
A period is a complete line of thought, which may contain several grammatical sentences, and which ends in a full stop (still called a 'period' in American English, recalling the earlier rhetorical tradition which Milton and others worked within).
An early modern writer like Milton typically composes not primarily in sentences, but in periods. To get a feel for this, we have to extend our view beyond the sentence, which is generally taught as the largest grammatical unit today. A rough equivalent to a Miltonic period would be the paragraph, a gathering of sentences to make a cohesive larger statement. Another analogy is to see the punctuation marks as the joints of a limb, articulating the various members and holding them together to form a greater whole.
Simply to get our eye in, we can have a look at the 'joints' of a representative portion of text, Paradise Lost, Book X, lines 312-24. Text and notes are from the Dartmouth hypertext edition:
Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art
Pontifical, a ridge of pendent Rock
Over the vext Abyss, following the track
Of Satan, to the self same place where hee [ 315 ]
First lighted from his Wing, and landed safe
From out of Chaos to the out side bare
Of this round World: with Pinns of Adamant
And Chains they made all fast, too fast they made
And durable; and now in little space [ 320 ]
The confines met of Empyrean Heav'n
And of this World, and on the left hand Hell
With long reach interpos'd; three sev'ral wayes
In sight, to each of these three places led.
Stripped down eccentrically to punctuation marks only, this passage becomes ,,,,: ,;,;. The period is composed of two cola, around the pivotal colon (line 318). The first colon has four commas (none of them, we note, at the end of a line, the medial placement creating a series of cross-rhythms) and thus five grammatical commata. The second colon comprises three semi-cola. The first two semi-cola have two commata each. Without commas, the main structure is clearly : ; ; . The limb of the period is in two halves, and the second half has two smaller joints (the semi-cola) holding it together. The whole period resembles the classical period of four cola. A further analogy is the renaissance altarpiece, which is composed of various leaves (typically a diptych or triptych, but often with further sections), making a single work composed of distinct images - as foreign to prevailing conceptions of the artwork as Milton's periods are to those of the modern notion of sentence / statement.
Now we have identified the joints (or leaves), we are in a better position to follow the current of thought. Let us consider a longer period, also from Paradise Lost (the opening of Book IX).
First Colon
NO more of talk where God or Angel Guest
With Man, as with his Friend, familiar us'd
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast, permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd:
This is the first colon, ending midway through line 5, where the colon acts as a brake against the metrical momentum. It provides a link to the preceding book, referring to the scene we have just left: the poet tells us he will move on from the happy scene of man talking amicably with angels. There are five commata, the first two embracing the subject, and each of the last three giving an image of a particular action: used to sit ... partake ... permitting. These are non-finite verbal forms (two infinitives and a participle), suggesting the timeless, unhurried nature of such discourse. The colon is placed to create a pause for reflection, significantly pointing the key word unblam'd, which summarises man's lost innocence.
Second Colon
I now must change [ 5 ]
Those Notes to Tragic; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience:
The second colon explains why there can be 'No more' of this pleasant theme. It is made up of two semi-cola. The first of these announces the change of subject; the second unpacks the full sense of the key word Tragic and takes us to the momentous word disobedience (the negative prefix echoing unblam'd at the conclusion of the previous colon). The four commata list, with cumulative force, the crimes of man (distrust, breach disloyal, revolt, disobedience): these stark nouns offer a tonal contrast to the actions described in the first colon. We notice, too, the semantic aptness of breach / Disloyal being visually prised apart by a line break, a graphic representation of the rift between God and man.
Third Colon
On the part of Heav'n
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement giv'n, [ 10 ]
That brought into this World a world of woe,
Sinne and her shadow Death, and Miserie
Deaths Harbinger:
The second colon explained the first, and anatomised the elements of man's revolt. It moved us on from a timeless then to an equally verbless Now. The relation between colon 2 and colon 3 is that of cause and effect, as we learn of heaven's response to man's fall and the subsequent introduction of sin and death into the terrestrial sphere.
Fourth Colon
Sad task, yet argument
Not less but more Heroic then the wrauth
Of stern Achilles on his Foe pursu'd [ 15 ]
Thrice Fugitive about Troy Wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd,
Or Neptun's ire or Juno's, that so long
Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's Son;
If answerable style I can obtaine [ 20 ]
Of my Celestial Patroness, who deignes
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumb'ring, or inspires
Easie my unpremeditated Verse:
Now that the subject matter of the Fall has been outlined, the fourth colon reflects on it as suitable matter for epic verse. What is a heroic subject? The link between Milton's work and ancient epic is the theme of vengeance and retribution by the mighty (and indeed almighty). This colon digresses into an ostentatiously erudite riff on this subject, the commata unfolding descriptive ornamentations as the poet's mind explores the theme. The first semi-colon declares that the Fall is not less but more heroic than Achilles' combat with Hector in Homer's Iliad. The next semi-colon offers further classical examples of the theme of divine 'ire' and 'rage' in retribution. The entire colon subdivides into a tricolon, a group of three, with the third semi-colon being the longest, attaining a climactic force as it describes the nightly visitations to the poet by the Muse. The subject of the whole colon is thus the superiority of Milton's poem to ancient epic: his work, we learn, has a loftier theme, and is directly divinely inspired without human interference. But we note here that even as Milton laments man's pride in challenging a higher authority, he himself asserts his own will against the literary authority of classical poetry. At the same time, the reference to the actions of classical narratives seems a diversionary tactic, taking our view away from the total lack of memorable dramatic action in the story of fall and punishment in the Christian narrative he has outlined. The classically composed period is, we might feel, holding together a passage of thought vexed by paradox, tonal contrast, a sense of the mismatch between matter and manner in the Christian epic itself. We are given a chance to rest as the colon falls at the end of a largely iambic line.
Fifth Colon
Since first this Subject for Heroic Song [ 25 ]
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by Nature to indite
Warrs, hitherto the onely Argument
Heroic deem'd, chief maistrie to dissect
With long and tedious havoc fabl'd Knights [ 30 ]
In Battels feign'd; the better fortitude
Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe Races and Games,
Or tilting Furniture, emblazon'd Shields,
Impreses quaint, Caparisons and Steeds; [ 35 ]
Bases and tinsel Trappings, gorgious Knights
At Joust and Torneament; then marshal'd Feast
Serv'd up in Hall with Sewers, and Seneshals;
The skill of Artifice or Office mean,
Not that which justly gives Heroic name [ 40 ]
To Person or to Poem.
The fifth and final colon completes the claim for the Fall as an heroic theme by contrasting it with other epic narrative verse. Where the fourth colon dealt with ancient epic, the fifth describes more recent works. They are obsessed with boring battles, nostalgic ideas of chivalry ('tinsel Trappings'), and don't explore more interesting kinds of courage such as that of the martyrs. This great colon has no fewer than six semi-cola as Milton warms to his theme of the inferiority of everyone else's poetry to his own, in good puritanical fashion clearly showing an appetite for the kind of literary pleasures he deprecates. The important concept word 'Heroic' appears near the end to tie the fourth and fifth cola together.
It is perhaps worth repeating the observation that Milton usually places the heavy punctuation marks not at the ends of lines but in the middle. The shape and syntax of the period creates its own rhythm on top of, and against, the vestigial iambic metre. This plays a large part in giving Milton's verse a tense and 'heavy' feel as so much seems to be calling out for emphasis.
Finally, the long period here is a demonstration of the 'Heroic' nature of poet and poem, as it shows one vast line of thought encompassing rural repasts, divine anger, Homeric epic, divine inspiration, and chivalric verse. Here is a mind thinking, planning, remembering, considering and claiming with a triumphant mental energy.
Further Reading
Brief History of Punctuation in Britannica
Stephen Reimer's course notes from University of Alberta
John Lennard, The Poetry Handbook
M B Parkes, Pause and Effect: Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Scolar Press, 1992)
Lynne Truss, Eats Shoots and Leaves has a handy summary of the earlier system.
