Scholars solved a 130-year literary mystery and it hinged on one word
sciencedaily.com
sciencedaily.com
If it is "wife" then it is the only hint of Miranda's mother. That's not a massive plot change, but it substantially colors my reading of the play. Shakespeare has a tendency to dismiss mothers without a word. Death in child bed was surely common and there were plenty of widows, but the complete absence of any reference makes me wonder how it affects the widow and the children. (Compare Shylock, who has one utterly heartbreaking reference to a gift from his wife when they were courting.)
The only difference between old style "f" and long "s" is an extremely narrow and short horizontal stroke added to make an "f".
That stroke frequently becomes invisible in an aged book, where you can no longer decide which was the original letter.
Cambridge researchers have reinterpreted the long-lost Song of Wade,
revealing it to be a chivalric romance rather than a monster-filled myth.
The twist came when “elves” in a medieval sermon were correctly
identified as “wolves,”
The breakthrough, detailed on July 15 in The Review of English Studies, involved working out that the manuscript refers to 'wolves' not 'elves', as scholars previously assumed.