Transforming Early English - The Reinvention of Early English and Older Scots

Considers how medieval English and Scots texts were re-worked in later centuries, and the implications for philological theory and practice.

List 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.

About the author

Jeremy Smith is the University of Glasgow's Professor of English Philology, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. His publications reflect his wide interests, which range from English historical linguistics and book history to the language of Robert Burns.

Summary

This book accounts for later re-workings of early English and Scottish texts, arguing for a new interdisciplinary approach to textual studies from an angle of historical pragmatics. It will appeal to researchers and higher-level students in historical linguistics and book history and to those interested more broadly in sociocultural formation.

Product details

• Authors: Jeremy J Smith, Jeremy J. Smith, Jeremy J. (University of Glasgow) Smith, Smith Jeremy J.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.05.2020
• EAN: 9781108420389
• ISBN: 978-1-108-42038-9
• No. of pages: 308
• Series: Studies in English Language
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Philosophy of Language, English, Ireland, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Grammar, syntax & morphology, Historical & comparative linguistics, Grammar, syntax and morphology, Semantics, discourse analysis, stylistics, Historical and comparative linguistics, Semantics, discourse analysis, etc