Transforming early English : the reinvention of early English and older Scots

Bibliographic Information

Transforming early English : the reinvention of early English and older Scots

Jeremy J. Smith

(Studies in English language)

Cambridge University Press, 2020

  • : hardback

Available at  / 7 libraries

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Note

Bibliography: p. 252-281

Includes indexes

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Transforming Early English shows how historical pragmatics can offer a powerful explanatory framework for the changes medieval English and Older Scots texts undergo, as they are transmitted over time and space. The book argues that formal features such as spelling, script and font, and punctuation - often neglected in critical engagement with past texts - relate closely to dynamic, shifting socio-cultural processes, imperatives and functions. This theme is illustrated through numerous case-studies in textual recuperation, ranging from the reinvention of Old English poetry and prose in the later medieval and early modern periods, to the eighteenth-century 'vernacular revival' of literature in Older Scots.

Table of Contents

  • Prologue. Snatched from the fire: the case of Thomas Percy
  • 1. On historical pragmatics
  • 2. Inventing the Anglo-Saxons
  • 3. 'Witnesses preordained by God': the reception of Middle English religious prose
  • 4. The great tradition: Langland, Gower, Chaucer
  • 5. Forging the nation: reworking older Scottish literature
  • 6. On textual transformations: Walter Scott and beyond.

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