ABSTRACT
The function of language in drama, even when it is moulded into formal poetic styles, is to simulate the serendipity of thought process and the fluidity of intonation that constitutes actual speech. It is language which, at its most successful, flows, connects and jumps about in extraordinary ways. The introduction of primary education for all in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century inculcated a notion of 'correct' punctuation based on the division of language into grammatical units. For the Renaissance period, the control of unruly words was of more than grammatical interest. The word was God, and God spoke, in one and to one, through the Bible. As long ago as 1911, Percy Simpson argued that imposition of the then modern, heavy, logical, grammatical style of editorial punctuation was destroying the subtlety of much Shakespearean prosody, but it is only in the last ten to twenty years that his warnings have been heeded.
