Transforming Early English: The Reinvention of Early English and Older Scots (Studies in English Language)
Cambridge University Press, 4/30/2020
EAN 9781108420389, ISBN10: 1108420389
Hardcover, 308 pages, 23.1 x 18 x 1.8 cm
Language: English
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.
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.