Time-Bound Words: Semantic and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's - Hardcover

Knapp, P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0333753798 ISBN 13: 9780333753798

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Synopsis

Between 1380 and 1611 English social life and the English language changed dramatically. Time-Bound Words argues that these changes are woven together, often in surprising ways, since discourse both records and influences how people imagine and react to the word. To investigate this claim in some detail, the book follows eleven words from Chaucer's time to Shakespeare's. Middle English words like corage, estat, fre, thrift and virtù come to serve the logic of new social discourses by 1611.

Time-Bound Words documents general patterns of usage, gathering evidence from many kinds of texts, lapidaries as well as poems, but also acknowledging the power of certain texts to constitute meaning. Language from Chaucer, Wyclif, More, Tyndale, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Jonson and others is examined both as current and emerging usage, and as verbal play that accomplishes cultural work.

About this title

Review:

...provide useful and vivid introductions to the lived textures of the early modern world. Renaissance Quarterly

Synopsis:

This study argues that changes in English society and the English language are woven together, often in surprising ways, and investigates this claim by following 11 words from Chaucer's time to Shakespeare's. Middle English words like "corage, estat, thrift", and "virt" come to serve the logic of new social discourses by 1611. Language from Chaucer, Wyclif, More, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson and others is examined both as current and emerging usage, and as verbal play that accomplishes cultural work.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0333753798
• ISBN 13: 9780333753798
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 231