2. The Enrichment of English: The language of nature, ethics, and politics in Elizabethan and Jacobean times

Assignment: Sir Walter Ralegh, excerpt from The Dutie of a King in his Royal Office (1599);
James I, excerpt from The True Law of Free Monarchies; or, The Reciprocal and Mutual Duty Betwixt a Free King and His Natural Subjects; Shakespeare, Macbeth (First Folio facsimile); Macbeth (First Folio transcription); Lewis, Chapter 2; Barfield, Chapter VIII

Note: It is essential to read Macbeth in the First Folio text with the original spelling. If you'd like the help of a commentary, the Arden edition by Kenneth Muir is the best (and the only one useful for this course).

What did Shakespeare's English sound like in his own time? We don't really know. But here is a conjecture by the renowned Shakespeare scholar, Andrew Gurr: "Other Accents: Some Problems with identifying Elizabethan Pronunciation" (EMLS 7.1/Special Issue 8 (May, 2001): 5.1-4)

Why did Shakespeare's English sound different? The Great Vowel Shift: Melinda Menzer's site at Furman University

Etymology assignment: nature, monarchy, throne, policy, family, power, honesty, virtue, weyard (i.e. weïrd)

3. Ritual and Reason in XVIIth Century England

Assignment: Burchfield, Chapter 5; Burnley, nos. 51,52; St. Paul, I Corinthians 13; Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, Book II, excerpt; John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 3, Chapters 1-2, George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, 6-25; Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici [optional: Lancelot Andrewes, Easter Sermon, 1606; John Donne, Easter Sermon, Resurrection and Ascension, from Holy Sonnets]

Etymology assignment: charity, imagination, participation, sensible, idea, sign.

4. Towards the Classical English of the XVIIIth Century

Assignment: ; Burnley, nos. 35 (Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II entire), 38; John Winthrop, On Liberty; Samuel Johnson, "Preface to the Dictionary", The Rambler, no. 168 (on Lady Macbeth and her knife); Barfield, Chapters IX-X; Burchfield, Chapter 6 [also helpful: Blake, Chapter 9 (Establishing the Standard within Social Norms)]

Etymology assignment: zone, palpable, obscure, suffrage, ambition, regal, knife

5. Romanticism, Democratic Ideals, and Language

Assignment: Assignment: Burnley, no. 41, 45-7; Declaration of Independence, excerpt; Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, excerpt; Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "Economy"; S. T. Coleridge, "Dejection: An Ode"; Shelley, Defence of Poetry, excerpt; Wordsworth, "The Recluse", excerpt; Barfield, Chapter XI; Burchfield, Chapter 4 [also helpful: Blake, Chapter 10 (Emancipation, Education, and Empire)]

Etymology assignment: nature, government, tyranny, authority, Providence, honesty, despotic, fancy, memory, reason, empyreal, nature, reason, imagination, synthesis, analysis, imitation, mimetic, obtrude, penance, encumbrance, rust (N.B. IE root!)

6. The Victorians: Idealism, realism, rhetoric and aestheticism: Nineteenth century views of language and the New English Dictionary (now known as the Oxford English Dictionary): Carlyle, Dickens, Emily Brontë, Newman, Ruskin, Pater

Assignment: Burnley, nos. 41-43, 45-47; Charles Dickens, "Saxon English"; Ven. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Sermon, vol. 4, no. 2, "Obedience without Love, as instanced in the Character of Balaam"; Walter Pater, "Style"

Etymology assignment: tba

7. American English 1850-1900, influence of Shakespeare and KJV, regionalism

Assignment: Mark Twain, Huckelberry Finn, Chapter V (banned from Concord Public Library for "a systematic use of bad grammar and an employment of inelegant expressions" and other immoralities: Newspaper report); Bernard de Voto, "Whiskey is for Patriots", Harper's Magazine, April 1951

Etymology assignment: none

8. English in Ireland, Irish or English?: Yeats, Joyce and others

Assignment: James Joyce, Ulysses: "Scylla and Charybdis " (Gabler edition, which includes an important omission from earlier editios, otherwise, use Gabler with informed caution: see Kenner's and Ellman's reviews); Stephen McKenna's wisdom on Ireland and England, Irish and English, language, European literature, and other matters.

Etymology assignment: tba
 

9. Contemporary themes

Assignment: Burchfield Chapters 7-10; Burnley nos.48-49; a mature voice: "Armageddon Can Wait", Alistair Cooke's Letter from America (BBC World Service, Nov. 2002: Listen to the audio! Note Alistair's Biblical references and his syntax.) [also helpful: Blake, Chapter 11 (World Domination and Growing Variation)]

More Contemporary Issues:

Etymology assignment: galvanization, proletarian, humanitarian, prefabricated, visualize

Final Paper