Transforming Early English: The Reinvention of Early English and Older Scots.
- Author/Editor
- Smith, Jeremy J.
- Title
- Transforming Early English: The Reinvention of Early English and Older Scots.
- Published
- Smith, Jeremy J. Transforming Early English: The Reinvention of Early English and Older Scots. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
- Review
- "The book argues," Jeremy Smith says at the outset, "that correlations between textual form and textual function are of very considerable interest not only to scholars working within the paradigm of historical pragmatics but also, more generally, to literary scholars, would-be editors, book historians and indeed those interested in issues of cultural change more generally" (29). For the "Confessio Amantis," he focuses on differences between the language of the important manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Fairfax 3 and the language of M. L. Samuels's "Type III" that pervades late-fourteenth-century manuscripts. Some of the language idiosyncrasies, which may well be Gower's own, appear in later manuscripts but are muted in Berthelette's early prints. These also embody an evolving punctuation practice (between the 1532 and 1554 editions) that "would seem to reflect a more directive approach to the text, guiding readers in pragmatic terms more insistently towards the interpretation of Gower's verse" (150). [TWM. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 42.1]
- Date
- 2020
- Gower Subjects
- Language and Word Studies
Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
Confessio Amantis