Question for Eng Lit and Lang geeks

[woolymonkey]

Does anyone know if loved and proved rhymed fully in Elizabethan English?

Spider has to write a comparison of two Shakespeare sonnets (116 and 130 since you ask). 116 is the one that ends
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

It doesn't really matter, but it would be very satisfying to know, and tailor his point accordingly.

If you're wondering which sonnet is 130, it's 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun'.  

Comments

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

I think there are at least 2 schools of thought on this. Philologically, I would tend to say yes, they did---but more in York than in London. They certainly did rhyme fully in Chaucer's time, but by Shakespeare's there were significant changes afoot in English that were altering the speech of the south of England into what is now recognisable as 'London''s accent. In the north and west, where regional dialects still remain, one can find traces of the older, more gutteral English speech that was probably the norm in 1500. *G* Cool question! I love philology! This is an interesting essay: http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/9783110197143.2.207

[porridgebird.livejournal.com]

Probably a dumb question, but this is so interesting: Would it be looved/proved or loved/pruvved?

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

Not dumb at all! I was flabbergasted when my mother read me "Beowulf". In Old English. It was totally incomprehensible and sounded like German gargled through a mustache cup. *snerk*

It would be close to luuuved/pruuved----very northern-type inflexion....like Sean Bean's dialect in the Sharpe series (which, btw, was also much the way New Englanders spoke in the late-1600/early 1700's. *G*)

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the replies--that's really interesting. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed beyond the first page of the paper without paying $40 (and it's not quite THAT interesting). I've bookmarked it to read next time I go to the University Library, but that'll be after Spider writes his answer :(

And, yeah, I remember the shock of first hearing 'Beowulf', though not from my mother! I was fascinated. But I ended up studying Old French and Chaucer, which were a bit easier to get to grips with.

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

what hippediva said - great vowel shift and all that.

As for regional dialect issue - Shakespeare came from Stratford but worked in London. Hard to know how much his personal accent converged with (contemporary) London use or not (I enjoyed an ADC production based on Henry Green, which played Shakespeare with a Brummie accent!), as the only evidence we have for his phonology is his rhyming (so debate can get a bit circular).

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm sure that for Spider's GCSE purposes, just being aware that we don't really know if it would have rhymed is more than enough--but I find this fascinating.

[dorispossum.livejournal.com]

Wish Spidermonkey luck for me!

Am a paid-up 'geek' on language history - in particular those bits which would (if I had time machine) allow me to go nyahnyahnyah to some of my prescriptivist old teachers/bosses.