Sonnet Loan Words -- Surrey

Robin Hamilton robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM
Sun Nov 15 02:52:31 UTC 2009


Surrey, "Love that doth raine and live within my thought":

DATE:   Surrey died in 1547, five years after Wyatt, at the age of 30.  If
we assign the composition of Wyatt's sonnet to 1530, it seems reasonable to
place Surrey's at 1540.

119  Actual Words:   97/OE   21/OF  1/Old Norse
         %OE - 81%    %Loan - 19%    %OF - 18%

79    Distinct Words (66%):   59/OE   19/OF  + 1
          %OE - 75%     %Loan - 25%       %OF - 24%

58    Strong Words (49%):   38/OE    19/OF  + 1
         %OE - 66%     %Loan - 34%    %OF - 33%

Of the 21 Originally French derived words, all but five are again first
recorded in the period 1275-1386.  Unlike Wyatt, the Surrey sonnet has no
later French-derived words, but like Wyatt, the majority of the earlier
terms - four of the five - are found in the Ancrene Rule, with the fifth,
again like Wyatt, appearing in The Life of St. Katherine.

The Ancrene Rule would thus seem to be emerging as a text of interest, more
probably because it records the currency of French loan words in the early
13thC than because it is the source of them.

To summarise the results so far:

                                   A Cheerful Little Table

Author         Date     TOTAL     %              DISTINCT       STRONG
                                  number    Derived     % Derived

Wyatt             1530       104         20%            28%             42%
Surrey            1540       119         19%            25%             34%
Shakespeare   1600       114        12%             16%             22%

Robin Hamilton

***************************

Love that doth raine and live within my thought,
And buylt his seat within my captyve brest,
Clad in the armes wherin with me he fowght
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
But she that tawght me love and suffre paine,
My doubtfull hope and eke my hote desire
With shamfast looke to shadoo and refrayne,
Her smyling grace convertyth streight to yre.
And cowarde love than to the hert apace
Taketh his flight where he doth lorke and playne
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face..
For my lordes gylt thus fawtless byde I payine;
   Yet from my lorde shall not my foote remove.
   Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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