Colon and Semicolon in Donne’s Prose Letters: Practice and Principle

Colon and Semicolon in Donne’s Prose Letters: Practice and Principle

Roth-Schwartz, Emma

Early Modern Literary Studies 3.1 (May 1997)

Abstract

Empirical study of John Donne’s colon and semicolon usage reveals several Donnean principles of punctuation. These principles, observable in the letters Donne wrote in 1601/2 to Sir Thomas Egerton and Sir George More, are congruent with the usage described in the grammar handbooks of Jonson, Butler, and Daines; Donne applies them with a high degree of consistency. In the letters studied, the colon, like the semicolon, is found only at the end of a syntactically complete branch of a loose sentence; Donne’s periodic sentences are punctuated only by commas and full stops. The colon signals a change of topic within the sentence, with emphasis on what follows the colon. A colon, when it appears, is always the first long stop of its sentence. Donne has two uses for the semicolon. His semicolons may coordinate series of sentactically parallel or almost parallel clauses or phrases, or they may signal to the reader that the branch of the sentence preceding the semicolon is incomplete in sense although complete in syntax. This second usage results in sentences whose cumulative force builds in a series of branches. The punctuation principles discerned in these letters are related to the meaning as well as the syntax of Donne’s sentences. And these principles have profound implications for interpretation of Donne’s poetry, because examination of the verse letter to the Lady Carey, the only Donne poem to survive in his hand, reveals the same punctuation principles at work there as in the letters of 1601/2. We may therefore tentatively conclude that Donne’s punctuation styles in familiar letters and in poetry were very similar.

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