A Note on Constrained Linguistic Variation in a North-west Midlands Middle-English Scribe.
- Author/Editor
- Smith, Jeremy J.
- Title
- A Note on Constrained Linguistic Variation in a North-west Midlands Middle-English Scribe.
- Published
- Smith, Jeremy J. "A Note on Constrained Linguistic Variation in a North-west Midlands Middle-English Scribe." Neophilologus 80 (1996): 461-64.
- Review
- After the reviewing various kinds of late-medieval scribal copying, Smith emphasizes the commonness of "scribal translation," by which, when confronting an exemplar written in a variety other than their own, scribes translated that exemplar into their customary language. Transmission of the CA differs from this norm, since it evidently had a high number of constrained scribes, that is, scribes who did not translate the language of their exemplar. One such scribe is that of Manchester, Chetham Library MS A.6.11, who reproduces Gower's forms even when they differ from his own preferred ones, as witnessed in his copy of "Gest Hystoriale." [TWM. Copyright. The John Gower Society eJGN 40.1]
- Date
- 1996
- Gower Subjects
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Language Word Studies
Confessio Amantis