re From Typology to Type

[jbor]

on 21/5/02 5:35 PM, Otto at o.sell at telda.net wrote:

> Am I mistaken or is my copy of "Tristram Shandy" a modernized version? There
> are just a few capitalized nouns!
> 
> Otto
> 
> 
> 

Check the editor's 'Note on the Text' if there is one. In the Penguin
edition I have Graham Petrie mentions that, among other things,
"[c]apitalization of such words as King, Queen, Duke, Captain and Corporal
has been made consistent." So, just like Shakespeare and spelling, Sterne
wasn't consistent with his capital letters across the text.

But you're right that not many of the common nouns in the novel are
capitalised. The mock "dedication" to Pitt which precedes Vol. I and the
"Dedication to a Great Man" which opens Vol. IX are more like it, but _TS_
doesn't seem to be a good example of the type of 18th C. style that Pynchon
is parodying in _M&D_ with his capitalisation of adjectives and nouns.
Something like this is a little closer:

http://www.jaffebros.com/lee/gulliver/front/publisher.html

I think the main point to note is that there wasn't a fixed standard. The
conventions varied from author to author, text to text, publisher to
publisher, and printer to printer.

best