ABSTRACT
This fellow doth not stand upon points. - Theseus, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
So now, my solemn ones, leaving the rest unsaid, Rising in air as on a gander’s wings At a careless comma,
-Robert Graves 1 Punctuation as a creative principle
Schoolroom practice encourages the assumption that punc tuation is a corrective and editorial act, the particulars of which are worked out after a piece of writing has been drafted. This is at best an incomplete view of the matter. To punctuate is an integral part of the developing process of composition; as we choose words, as we conceive the pattern of the text, so we evolve designs in punctuation. There may certainly be a phase of revision, when oversights are cor rected, ambiguities resolved, relationships clarified; in es sence, however, punctuation is a creative act, and its options are bound up with other textual options.
