Why was apostrophe so vaguely used in Early Modern English?

Question

So I have noticed in many of Shakespeare's poems that he used apostrophes in places where we don't usually see them now.

For Example: In the poem 'Fear No More' the first line is "Fear no more the heat o' the sun', why wasn't of used instead of o'? Also in another poem- "It is the star to every wand'ring bark".

So, Why were apostrophes used so vaguely in these Early Modern English poems?

Answer 1

(First, a note: this isn't Old English, but Early Modern English. Old English looks like this:

Hƿæt. Ƿe Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

It's much older.)

Shakespeare's use of the apostrophe isn't vague or arbitrary: it's marking where certain letters shouldn't be pronounced.

For example, the word wandering can be pronounced with either two syllables ("wan-dring") or three ("wan-der-ing"). By replacing the E with an apostrophe, Shakespeare is telling the actor to use the two-syllable pronunciation. If you try it with the three-syllable pronunciation there, you'll see it messes up the iambic pentameter.

Answer 2

Shakespeare used apostrophes the exact same way we do—to signal that a sound is omitted.¹

There's nothing vague about his usage. As Draconis explains, "wand'ring" makes it clear that the vowel spelled by the missing "e" between "d" and "r" is to be omitted.² Usually, as here (but not with "o'" for "of"), this results in an entire syllable being dropped, which changes the scansion of the line, which is of course very important in metric verse.

In formal written English today, we mostly use apostrophes only in fixed contractions—e.g., "don't" for "do not" and "she's" for "she is". But they're used exactly the same way. "Don't" signals that the "o" sound in "not" (and therefore a whole syllable) is omitted.³

It may seem that there are so few of these contractions that we just learn each one as a separate word, and no longer have an "apostrophe rule". But a moment's reflection proves that can't be true. You can contract "is" or "has" onto almost any noun: "John's coming later", "The dog's got a bone", etc.

And, outside formal writing, people still use apostrophes in other locations, like writing "drinkin' and thinkin'" to signal the normal colloquial pronunciation instead of the one with a "g" at the end⁴—exactly as Shakespeare does with "o'". In every case, it works the same way for us as it did for Shakespeare.

In poetry (and sometimes song lyrics and other similar things) where scansion is important, people even still use apostrophes in exactly the same locations Shakespeare did. The only reason this doesn't come up in plays as often as in Shakespeare's day is that most plays aren't written to strict meter anymore.

There are a few cases that may seem strange, such as frequent "'d" for "ed" on the ends of words. What's going on there? Well, think of "I learned of a learned man"—the first "learned" is one syllable, the second is two.⁵ This distinction was more widespread in Shakespeare's day, so many "-ed" forms that can only be monosyllabic to us were ambiguous to him. So he spelled them with "'d" to force the monosyllabic pronunciation, exactly as with "wand'ring".

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_{1. There are, of course, other uses of the apostrophe—possessive "William's" doesn't omit anything, nor does the disambiguating plural marker in "p's and q's", nor do borrowed words that were spelled with apostrophes in their native language, except when that native language used apostrophes for omission. But that's also the same today.}

_{2. Of course you need to know enough about English orthography and pronunciation to know how to omit the sound properly—in this case, that "wandering" can be pronounced as both "wan-dring" and "wan-der-ing", so the apostrophe tells you to select the former. But that's not unique to apostrophes; all English spelling works that way.}

_{3. And again, the rest is up to your existing knowledge. In fact, notice how much more "don't" changes from "do not", compared to "wand'ring" from "wandering". Which one would you call more "vague"?}

_{4. Of course there's not actually a /g/ sound at the end. But native English speakers think there's a /g/ sound at the end, so when you're writing plays, poems, lyrics, etc., using the apostrophe to signal a native speaker to "drop the g" (or just writing "eye dialect" in a novel), the signal works.}

_{5. British spelling today usually distinguishes them as "learnt" vs. "learned", while a few generations ago they instead used "learned" vs. "learnèd". But Americans spell them indistinguishably, which makes for a better example here.}

Answer 3

Shakespeare used the apostrophes for actors to not pronounce the left out letters so it would resemble spoken language of the time.

Actors reading it would know what to leave out, possibly also to show or help them express social class through informal speech or make the plays more accessible to the audience.

On 1 the possessive seems to omit ‘hi’ in William’s from ‘William his’ or in the female case ‘her’ from ‘Anna hers’ to Anna’s.

On 4 learned does not use an apostrophe there. It is an accent grave, not pronounced in English which would change the meaning to something ridiculous.