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Overview
The triumph of English in the Renaissancethe successful efforts to advance the status of English over Latin and the continental vernacularshas long been considered the major linguistic event of the period. Too often, Paula Blank argues, this has obscured the fact that English itself was divided by internal contests. By investigating the ways that early modern writers represented dialects, Blank reveals how "English" itself was a construct of the Renaissance, produced by discriminations made among alternative then-current "Englishes".
Blank shows how dialect conditioned the production of reform, and examines how Renaissance literature became a major arena for competing Englishes of the period. Renaissance authors such as Spenser, Shakespeare and Jonson, Blank argues, produced the idea of a national language, variously known as "true" English, "pure" English, or the "King's" English, by distinguishing its dialectand sometimes by creating those dialects themselves. Broken English shows howthe Renaissance invention helped forge modern alliances of language and cultural authority.
Synopsis
The triumph of English in the Renaissancethe successful efforts to advance the status of English over Latin and the continental vernacularshas long been considered the major linguistic event of the period. Too often, Paula Blank argues, this has obscured the fact that English itself was divided by internal contests. By investigating the ways that early modern writers represented dialects, Blank reveals how "English" itself was a construct of the Renaissance, produced by discriminations made among alternative then-current "Englishes".
Blank shows how dialect conditioned the production of reform, and examines how Renaissance literature became a major arena for competing Englishes of the period. Renaissance authors such as Spenser, Shakespeare and Jonson, Blank argues, produced the idea of a national language, variously known as "true" English, "pure" English, or the "King's" English, by distinguishing its dialectand sometimes by creating those dialects themselves. Broken English shows howthe Renaissance invention helped forge modern alliances of language and cultural authority.
Booknews
An investigation of competing English dialects during the Renaissance arguing that Spenser, Shakespeare, and Jonson constructed the idea of a "King's" English by distinguishing between the many forms of English used during the period. Blank (English, College of William and Mary) broadens the linguistic studies of the period by her discussion of internal contests between different types of English in contrast to other scholarly works which have simply labeled the Renaissance as the time when English triumphed over Latin. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.