Shakespeare's pronunciation

[nq:1]Shakespeare happily rhymed "blood" with "good". How were those two words pronounced in his time? Do we know?[/nq]
I believe that Shakespeare's rhymes are a good guide to the fact that the pronunciation was the same or very similar. From what I've been able to glean pronunciation in his time was much closer to the spelling, although the connection between the two had already started to br

[nq:2]Shakespeare happily rhymed "blood" with "good". How were those two words pronounced in his time? Do we know?[/nq]
[nq:1]I believe that Shakespeare's rhymes are a good guide to the fact that the pronunciation was the same or very ... his time was much closer to the spelling, although the connection between the two had already started to break down.[/nq]
Ahem. You haven't said which pr

[nq:1]Shakespeare happily rhymed "blood" with "good". How were those two words pronounced in his time? Do we know?[/nq]
We do. "Good" seems to have been pronounced the same as it is now (a short -oo-, rather than the long -oo- of "mood and "food"), so "blood" (now usually pronounced "blud") would have rhymed with it. As most likely would have "mood" and "food".
We've just been having a spa

[nq:2]I believe that Shakespeare's rhymes are a good guide to ... connection between the two had already started to break down.[/nq]
[nq:1]Ahem. You haven't said which pronunciation to follow! I'm putting my money on "good", as being the one for the "-oo-" spelling.[/nq]
I've never heard Shakespeare being performed with original pronunciation, so I didn't want to hazard a guess. However in

[nq:1]Shakespeare happily rhymed "blood" with "good". How were those two words pronounced in his time? Do we know?[/nq]
I would refer you to:
E.J. Dobson, English Pronunciation, 1500-1700 (Clarendon Press, 1957/1968).
John Briggs

[nq:1]Shakespeare happily rhymed "blood" with "good".[/nq]
Still are, in Yorkshire at least
[nq:1]How were those two words pronounced in his time? Do we know?[/nq]
Short 'u'

Dave F

[nq:2]Ahem. You haven't said which pronunciation to follow! I'm putting my money on "good", as being the one for the "-oo-" spelling.[/nq]
[nq:1]I've never heard Shakespeare being performed with original pronunciation, so I didn't want to hazard a guess. However in various books about the history of English I've read that the relationship between pronunciation and spelling was much closer then

[nq:2]I've never heard Shakespeare being performed with original pronunciation, so ... and spelling was much closer then than it is now.[/nq]
[nq:1]Indeed. When English was first written, it was spelt phonetically. However, by Shakepeare's time "correct" spellings were just getting established. So the spelling used in English represents how English was spoken in the 16th century.[/nq]
It's

[nq:2]Indeed. When English was first written, it was spelt phonetically. ... English represents how English was spoken in the 16th century.[/nq]
[nq:1]It's more complicated than that. Spelling standardised (thanks to printing) shortly after* Shakespeare's works were published (say about the middle ... Middle English, which was *before the Great Vowel Shift. The pronunciation of some wor

[nq:2]It's more complicated than that. Spelling standardised (thanks to printing) ... pronunciation of some words has changed to match the spelling...[/nq]
[nq:1]If the spelling of Shakespeare's day represented Middle English, then it had already standardised. Not completely, perhaps, but enough so that there was no longer a completely phonetical representation.[/nq]
Yes, it was standardis