Early modern grammar: ‘choice’ (from Adamson)

Literary authors (like human beings) tend to exploit the linguistic variation available to them

§ not only for rhythm or rhyme!

Ex: neuter pronoun, possessive form:

§ from his (OE; Shakespeare’s unmarked form) through of it, thereof, it

§ to its later in the 17^th century

1. “when Horatio describes his encounter with the Ghost”

(1.2.214-7)

Hamlet Did you not speak to it?

Horatio: My lord, I did,

But answer made it none. Yet once methought

It lifted up it head and did address

Itself to motion like as it would speak.

2. (5.1.218-9) “where Hamlet, seeing a funeral, infers that”

The cor[p]s they follow did with desp’rate hand

Fordo it own life. ‘Twas of some estate

3. “in this couplet from the Fool in King Lear (Quarto 1.4.206-7)”

The hedgesparrow fed the cuckoo so long

That it had it head bit off by it young.

4. “Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of Hungaries.”