Format:
1 online resource (xi, 218 pages)
,
digital, PDF file(s).
ISBN:
9781107300750
,
9781107614550
,
9781107041769
Content:
How did authors such as Jonson, Spenser, Donne and Milton think about the past lives of the words they used? Hannah Crawforth shows how early modern writers were acutely attuned to the religious and political implications of the etymology of English words. She argues that these lexically astute writers actively engaged with the lexicographers, Anglo-Saxonists and etymologists who were carrying out a national project to recover, or invent, the origins of English, at a time when the question of a national vernacular was inseparable from that of national identity. English words are deployed to particular effect – as a polemical weapon, allegorical device, coded form of communication, type of historical allusion or political tool. Drawing together early modern literature and linguistics, Crawforth argues that the history of English as it was studied in the period radically underpins the writing of its greatest poets.
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015)
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Cover; Etymology and the Invention of English in Early Modern Literature; Title; Copyright; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgements; Note on the text; Introduction; Etymology in Early Modern England; Etymology and the invention of English; The roots of etymological reading: Biblical Humanism; Etymology in practice: vernacular philology; Chapter One Etymology and estrangement in the poems of Edmund Spenser; Strangers to our own mother tongue; Februarie: tradition and innovation; Maye: no newe reformation; Precedents for Protestantism: priests' marriage; 'September': wolves in England
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Speaking darklyIgnorance and blindness; 'Neither good English nor good Irish'; Reforming legends; Conclusion; Chapter Two Etymology and textual time in the masques of Ben Jonson; Cynthia's Revels (1601); The King's Entertainment (1604); Sejanus (1604); The Masque of Blackness (1605); Hymenaei (1606); For the Honour of Wales (1618); 'An Execration Upon Vulcan' (1623); Conclusion; Chapter Three Etymology and place in Donne's sermons; The place of etymology in Donne's sermons; A world in a word: the place of etymology in the Early Modern pulpit
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Language change and political power in Donne's court preachingLanguage, law and inheritance: Donne's sermons at the Inns of Court; Plurality and pragmatism: Donne preaches at St Paul's; Conclusion; Chapter Four Etymology and the ends of idealism in Milton's prose; The sceptical etymologist; 'The worme of Criticisme'; Radical literalism; Naming Parliament; The 'native integrity' of English; Redefining the heroic; Ideal worlds and pragmatic words; The ends of idealism; ConclusionA world in a word; Bibliography; Index
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9781107041769
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe ISBN 9781107041769
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe Crawforth, Hannah Jane, 1980 - Etymology and the invention of English in early modern literature Cambridge [u.a.] : Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013 ISBN 9781107041769
Language:
English
Subjects:
English Studies
Keywords:
Englisch
;
Literatur
;
Wortschatz
;
Etymologie
;
Geschichte 1500-1700
;
Electronic books
;
Hochschulschrift
DOI:
10.1017/CBO9781107300750
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