A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century
A New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century
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USDA New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century offers a new narrative of what happened to English language writing in the long twelfth century, the period that saw the end of the Old English tradition and the beginning of Middle English writing. It discusses numerous neglected or unknown texts, focusing particularly on documents, chronicles and sermons. To tell the story of this pivotal period, it adopts approaches from both literary criticism and historical linguistics, finding a synthesis for them in a twenty-first century philology. It develops new methodologies for addressing major questions about twelfth-century texts, including when they were written, how they were read and their relationship to earlier works. Essential reading for anyone interested in what happened to English after the Norman Conquest, this study lays the groundwork for the coming decade's work on transitional English.
- Offers a new narrative of what happened to English after the Norman Conquest, toppling current discredited views of the period with a compelling updated account
- Draws attention to and engages with numerous neglected or unknown English language texts from the long twelfth century, giving readers a fresh sense of just how much was written in English during the period
- Develops and describes new methodologies for answering major questions about twelfth-century texts, including their date, readership and relationship to earlier works, thus offering approaches that can be applied to other medieval texts
Awards
Winner, 2023 Best First Monograph Prize, International Society for the Study of Early Medieval England
Reviews & endorsements
‘This book makes a field-changing contribution to scholarship and cannot be ignored by any-one working on the literary, cultural, social, or linguistic history of England’s High Middle Ages. It is a formidable achievement.’ Laura Ashe, The Review of English Studies
‘… an engaging and erudite attempt to re-configure the history of English language and literature in the years following the Norman Conquest and before the emergence of the chief literary writers in English of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. … The book sets out [its] case in engaging and scholarly fashion; it may change the way the history of English is understood.’ Paul Cavill, The Glass
‘… an insightful piece of research which revisits one of the most promising, and yet at the same time one of the most neglected periods in the history of English language and writing.’ Paulina Zagorska, Linguistica Silesiana
‘Original, meticulously researched, and well-written … the New Literary History of the Long Twelfth Century is far and away the best study of the period to date. … Any future work on the period will need to begin with this important book.’ Tim William Machan, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies
Product details
July 2022Hardback
9781316516096
290 pages
235 × 158 × 22 mm
0.6kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Part I. Preliminaries:
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Approaching Twelfth-Century English-Language Texts
- Part II. The Affordances of English:
- 3. English in the Linguistic Ecology of the Long Twelfth Century
- 4. English as a Language of Documentary Record
- 5. English as a Language for Writing History
- 6. English as a Language for Sermon Writing
- 7. Conclusion.
