Bravo! When I first read about the inconsistencies or iterations, my guess was the verses had been memorized and the changes had happened organically. With few books available and fewer still folks fully literate, poems especially were often taught rote, memorized and carried through families like treasured jewels. It would be easy to assume either the family or the carver had simply misquoted the original. Your fantastic research and study of the topic seems to suggest otherwise. As always, great work and thanks for putting this in my radar.
The implications are bigger than I think I could explain. There seems to be a persistent pattern whereby a core artifact influences a group of people for a time, spinning off variations to fit specific circumstance. Then along comes another core artifact derived from the first and the process repeats. Meanwhile some people are still using the original core artifact as their guidepost along side those that are now using the secondary core artifact. I have noticed the same thing with men's hand tools. By the time someone actually puts a patent on it, artisans have already been using a version of it for 30 years. The Betsy Morris epitaph is the one example that best fits your theory of organic dispersion. Because of Wm. Morris's age, he probably was forced to memorize poems in the King Edward VI school in Stratford, and so popped it out of his head at age 54 to have put on his wife's monument.
Bravo! When I first read about the inconsistencies or iterations, my guess was the verses had been memorized and the changes had happened organically. With few books available and fewer still folks fully literate, poems especially were often taught rote, memorized and carried through families like treasured jewels. It would be easy to assume either the family or the carver had simply misquoted the original. Your fantastic research and study of the topic seems to suggest otherwise. As always, great work and thanks for putting this in my radar.
The implications are bigger than I think I could explain. There seems to be a persistent pattern whereby a core artifact influences a group of people for a time, spinning off variations to fit specific circumstance. Then along comes another core artifact derived from the first and the process repeats. Meanwhile some people are still using the original core artifact as their guidepost along side those that are now using the secondary core artifact. I have noticed the same thing with men's hand tools. By the time someone actually puts a patent on it, artisans have already been using a version of it for 30 years. The Betsy Morris epitaph is the one example that best fits your theory of organic dispersion. Because of Wm. Morris's age, he probably was forced to memorize poems in the King Edward VI school in Stratford, and so popped it out of his head at age 54 to have put on his wife's monument.
Fascinating and thanks for the clarity. It makes so much sense!
That's really fascinating.