Stuck for a word -help!

Carol wrote: "I'm including some but not all the originals in an appendix. The preface where I explain what I'm doing is where I need the word. Given that the language we speak is Modern English, I do think that 'modernize' is better than 'update' (though I could say 'modernize the pselling and upate the punctuation'". Both will, of course, be American. Not that I expect ever to publish this little work, which is primarily for my own use, but you never know." Doug here: Something I failed to include in my post - what are you doing about words which may have a completely different meaning today, or at least a different general usage? Which leads to a final suggestion: "modern usage", which would apply to words, punctuation, phrases *and* meanings. Best of luck! Doug

Doug wrote :
"Something I failed to include in my post - what are you doing about words which may have a completely different meaning today, or at least a different general usage?"

Carol responds:

I'm putting the modern word in square brackets. I can't just substitute a modern word, especially in poetry.

For example, "but the last of alle/ Was Ursula, to him God list calle" becomes "but the last of all/ Was Ursula, to Him God list [chose to] call." So spelling and capitalization are modernized, word order is left as is, and the wording is the same, with possibly unfamiliar words defined in square brackets as we used to do when I wrote literary criticism (aka literary analysis, not always "critical" in the modern sense).

Carol