Uncommon Tongues

Eloquence and Eccentricity in the English Renaissance

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, British
Cover of the book Uncommon Tongues by Catherine Nicholson, University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Catherine Nicholson ISBN: 9780812208801
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc. Publication: November 21, 2013
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press Language: English
Author: Catherine Nicholson
ISBN: 9780812208801
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication: November 21, 2013
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Language: English

In the late sixteenth century, as England began to assert its integrity as a nation and English its merit as a literate tongue, vernacular writing took a turn for the eccentric. Authors such as John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, and Christopher Marlowe loudly announced their ambitions for the mother tongue—but the extremity of their stylistic innovations yielded texts that seemed hardly English at all. Critics likened Lyly's hyperembellished prose to a bejeweled "Indian," complained that Spenser had "writ no language," and mocked Marlowe's blank verse as a "Turkish" concoction of "big-sounding sentences" and "termes Italianate." In its most sophisticated literary guises, the much-vaunted common tongue suddenly appeared quite foreign.

In Uncommon Tongues, Catherine Nicholson locates strangeness at the paradoxical heart of sixteenth-century vernacular culture. Torn between two rival conceptions of eloquence, savvy writers and teachers labored to reconcile their country's need for a consistent, accessible mother tongue with the expectation that poetic language depart from everyday speech. That struggle, waged by pedagogical theorists and rhetoricians as well as authors we now recognize as some of the most accomplished and significant in English literary history, produced works that made the vernacular's oddities, constraints, and defects synonymous with its virtues. Such willful eccentricity, Nicholson argues, came to be seen as both the essence and antithesis of English eloquence.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In the late sixteenth century, as England began to assert its integrity as a nation and English its merit as a literate tongue, vernacular writing took a turn for the eccentric. Authors such as John Lyly, Edmund Spenser, and Christopher Marlowe loudly announced their ambitions for the mother tongue—but the extremity of their stylistic innovations yielded texts that seemed hardly English at all. Critics likened Lyly's hyperembellished prose to a bejeweled "Indian," complained that Spenser had "writ no language," and mocked Marlowe's blank verse as a "Turkish" concoction of "big-sounding sentences" and "termes Italianate." In its most sophisticated literary guises, the much-vaunted common tongue suddenly appeared quite foreign.

In Uncommon Tongues, Catherine Nicholson locates strangeness at the paradoxical heart of sixteenth-century vernacular culture. Torn between two rival conceptions of eloquence, savvy writers and teachers labored to reconcile their country's need for a consistent, accessible mother tongue with the expectation that poetic language depart from everyday speech. That struggle, waged by pedagogical theorists and rhetoricians as well as authors we now recognize as some of the most accomplished and significant in English literary history, produced works that made the vernacular's oddities, constraints, and defects synonymous with its virtues. Such willful eccentricity, Nicholson argues, came to be seen as both the essence and antithesis of English eloquence.

More books from University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.

Cover of the book Child Soldiers in Africa by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Romain Gary by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Early Modern Cultures of Translation by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Blue-Collar Broadway by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Between Cultures by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Owning William Shakespeare by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Red Matters by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Cancer in the Lives of Older Americans by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Poetics of the Incarnation by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Love and Honor in the Himalayas by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Mall Maker by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Astounding Wonder by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Evening News by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Human Rights in American Foreign Policy by Catherine Nicholson
Cover of the book Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period by Catherine Nicholson
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy