Old texts again?

Question

Let me add some info to my initial question asked. What I asked was why in older texts the letter 's' is sometimes replaced with 'f'? I know it's not just because that's how they wrote 's', because I have an example of a text where 's' is used as it is normally, but then in certain instances 'f' is used instead. For example, "Whofe fhort and narrow verged shade does prudently their Toyles upbraid." This is from an old poem.

Answer 1

This was due to a rule of style in use at the time regarding typefaces (printed materials only, this does not occur in handwritten works).

The capital S was as we use it today, ans the lowercase s which we are today familiar with was used only at the end of a word. In the middle of a word, a letter which was very similar to (but not quite the same as) the letter f was used.

Answer 2

I know what you mean. The letter 'f' was sometimes used as the nearest looking Arabic letter to an old Anglo Saxon letter that was pronounced as an 's' but looked like an 'f'. This is personified in old German 'script' also where, until recent times the Germans used a letter that looks like a Latin 'beta' but was actually double 's'. Look up on Wikipedia inserting Old English Language. Very informative.

Answer 3

Canterbury Tales:

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/canterbury/

http://education.yahoo.com/homework_help/cliffsnotes/the_canterbury_tales/

http://www.nowhereatall.net/prioress.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/CT-prolog-para.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

http://www.nowhereatall.net/prioress.html#Sources

http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaubib.htm

http://mw.mcmaster.ca/timeline.html

http://www.bartleby.com/212/index.html#2

The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer Geoffrey

I have found 7 summaries for you to look at, via the links below.

http://www.antistudy.com/search.php?title=Canterbury+Tales

http://www.freebooknotes.com/book.php3?id=63

These links will give you a summary of the book, character analysis, plot and much more, so that you will be able to answer literary questions. Here is a short extract of what you can expect from the summaries.

Online Texts

http://geoffreychaucer.org/texts/

Good luck.

Kevin, Liverpool, England.