Thank you for the reply. I can only imagine that the application of "Light Modernization" to this masterpiece would not only change the pronunciation of the words, it would add the implied missing words thereby disrupting the meter and rhyme and thus subsequently ruin the sonnet. I understand the point of making things readable but when you start changing the spelling, you actually ruin the art form. Sonnet > Light Modernized Poem
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Ironically, you've posted the lightly modernized version of 116. :) In the 1609 printing it looks like:
O no, it is an euer fixed marke
That lookes on tempeſts and is neuer ſhaken;
It is the ſtar to euery wandring barke
Whoſe worths vnknowne, although his higth be taken...
Touche! :D
The point still stands. If "mostly-automated one-to-one spelling and hyphenation updates" changes 'wand'ring' to 'wandering', 'worth's' to 'worth is' or 'Love's' to 'Love is', you break the sonnet.
I think this is a good time to maybe do some research into whether your complaints are valid or not before making them... You clearly aren't seeing that the point, in fact, does not stand...
Iambic pentameter depends on pronunciation, not spelling, and the changes/reforms/standartization generally affects the spelling only. If you take an archaic representation of some sounds and replace it with the modern representation of those sounds, the verse isn't changed.
In that example, "vnknowne" is pronounced the same as "unknown", despite having an extra "vowel" in the typography.
Spelling (and related things) in poetry (especially contractions) often signals intended pronunciation variations from the standard pronunciation of a word.
A mechanical modernization and standardization would seem to run a significant risk of damaging some of these, though proper manual final review would hopefully catch and revert the problematic cases.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.