Relevant bibliographies by topics / Early modern English literature and culture

Contents

  1. Journal articles
  2. Dissertations / Theses
  3. Books
  4. Book chapters
  5. Conference papers

Academic literature on the topic 'Early modern English literature and culture'

Author: Grafiati
Published: 4 June 2021
Last updated: 1 February 2022

Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles

Select a source type:

Consult the lists of relevant articles, books, theses, conference reports, and other scholarly sources on the topic 'Early modern English literature and culture.'

Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.

You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.

Journal articles on the topic "Early modern English literature and culture"

1

Graham, Kenneth J. E., and Hannibal Hamlin. "Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature." Sixteenth Century Journal 36, no. 3 (October 1, 2005): 862. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20477518.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Brennan, M. G. "Review: Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature." Notes and Queries 52, no. 1 (March 1, 2005): 115–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/notesj/gji155.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Breen, Dan, David Loewenstein, and John Marshall. "Heresy, Literature and Politics in Early Modern English Culture." Sixteenth Century Journal 39, no. 3 (October 1, 2008): 792. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20479029.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Quitslund, Beth. "Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature ? Hannibal Hamlin." Milton Quarterly 40, no. 3 (October 2006): 250–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1094-348x.2006.00146.x.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Achinstein, S. "Heresy, Literature and Politics in Early Modern English Culture." English Historical Review CXXV, no. 516 (July 15, 2010): 1243–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ehr/ceq186.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Huttar, Charles A. "Book Review: Psalm Culture and Early Modern English Literature." Christianity & Literature 54, no. 4 (September 2005): 609–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014833310505400409.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

Lowenstein (book editor), David, John Marshall (book editor), and Jonathan Wright (review author). "Heresy, Literature and Politics in Early Modern English Culture." Renaissance and Reformation 32, no. 1 (January 1, 2009): 139–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.33137/rr.v32i1.9602.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

Swann, Marjorie. "The Politics of Fairylore in Early Modern English Literature*." Renaissance Quarterly 53, no. 2 (2000): 449–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2901875.

Full text
Abstract:
This essay argues that Stuart fairy poetry, rooted in Shakespeare's innovative representation of tiny, consumeristic fairies, attempts to indigenize new forms of elite material display. Rather than the fairies of popular tradition or courtly mythography, Stuart poets depict miniaturized Mabs and Oberons who are notable for their wardrobes, banquets, coaches, and the decor of their palaces. The fairy poetry of William Browne, Michael Drayton, and Robert Herrick must be interpreted not as playful escapism, but as a self-consciously politicized literary mode which reveals these writers’ deep ambivalence toward elite culture — and toward their own artistic role within that culture.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Ivic (book editor), Christopher, Grant Williams (book editor), and Alison A. Chapman (review author). "Forgetting in Early Modern English Literature and Culture: Lethe's Legacies." Renaissance and Reformation 40, no. 1 (January 1, 2004): 111–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.33137/rr.v40i1.8956.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. "Heresy, Literature, and Politics in Early Modern English Culture (review)." Catholic Historical Review 94, no. 1 (2008): 159–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/cat.2008.0018.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
More sources

Dissertations / Theses on the topic "Early modern English literature and culture"

1

Bingham, Sarah. "Colour in early modern English literature and culture." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2018. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.766284.

Full text
Abstract:
In early modern England, colour was both a material and a textual preoccupation. However, the polychromatic palette that surrounded English men and women, and the particoloured palette of early modern writers, has thus far received little scholarly attention. This thesis rethinks the culture of colour in England between c. 1580 and c. 1660 to stimulate and enhance critical appreciation of colour in early modern literature. In contradistinction to the monochromatic trend of current cultural histories and early modern research, in this thesis I analyse all colours, situating these within their original socio-cultural contexts to substantiate the significance of colour in a literary text. My contextualised and polychromatic colour-concern offers an alternative method to traditional quantitative or symbolic approaches to colour in literature, as it takes into consideration how colour was experienced during an era that was attentive both to the material qualities and textual existence of colour. This thesis explores five "colourscapes," which include the workplace, household, Church, New World, and theatre, in order to finesse connections between colourful environs and attendant colour-configurations in early modern English literature. Attending to rhetorical instantiations of colour, and to the lived experience of colour as manifested in literature, this thesis offers an analytical lens through which early modern scholars, and literary scholars alike, can approach colour in literature.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Frazer, P. "Deviant mobility in early modern English literature and culture." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.546343.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

De, Ornellas K. P. "Troping the horse in early modern English literature and culture." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.273067.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Giglio, Katheryn M. "Unlettered culture the idea of illiteracy in early modern writing /." Related electronic resource: Current Research at SU : database of SU dissertations, recent titles available full text, 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/login?COPT=REJTPTU0NWQmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientId=3739.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Hoffman, Tiffany. "Virtuous passions: Shakespeare and the culture of shyness in early modern England." Thesis, McGill University, 2014. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=122962.

Full text
Abstract:
The dissertation develops an interdisciplinary account of the psychological and affective state of shyness, and examines representations of the emotion, along with its variant states shame, bashfulness, and modesty, in Shakespeare and in other early English literature. It brings together work from various fields: literature, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, religious studies, classics, and ancient philosophy. It is a literary study, but also considers medical, political, theological, and social tracts. The dissertation begins with an exploration of the classical emotion concept the fear of shame, and finds the roots of shyness in the virtue ethics tradition of Aristotle. It then moves on to examine the influence Aristotle's moral philosophy had on early modern conceptions of shyness, especially as a religious passion associated with conscience. In view of the way new modes of courtesy, social humility, and courtly interaction infiltrated the predominantly male world of civil conversation, the dissertation outlines how the cultural status of shyness shifted throughout the period. As I demonstrate, shyness underwent a radical secularization and went from being widely understood as a religious emotion to a pathological condition linked to melancholy.Chapter one investigates Shakespeare's interest in the gendering of shyness, and argues that the rising prevalence of bashfulness amongst male courtiers contributed to the medicalization of the emotion in the period. The chapter develops an account of Shakespeare's King Henry the Sixth: a figure whose characterization exemplifies the rapid transformation of shyness as it devolved from a virtuous moral and religious passion into one associated with notions of male disease and political immorality. The following chapters, however, reveal a shift in perspective. In Coriolanus, The Merchant of Venice, and Measure for Measure, Shakespeare questions the early modern pathologization of bashfulness through his endorsement of an Aristotelian account of shyness as a social, ethical, and religious virtue. In these plays the experience of bashfulness operates as a governing emotional force over the advancement of sinful forms of pride and vengeance, and produces a spiritually reformative and transformative effect within the Christian subject. By calling attention to the moral and religious connotations associated with bashfulness throughout its history, the dissertation seeks to counter the medicalization and denigration of shyness currently taking place in the modern world.
La présente thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre interdisciplinaire d'une étude psychologique et affective de la timidité. Aussi rend-elle compte, chez Shakespeare et autres premiers littérateurs anglais, des représentations de l'émotion dans ses états de honte, d'embarras et de modestie. Elle fait également appel à plusieurs disciplines: littérature (y compris celle des Anciens), psychologie, neuroscience, sociologie, études religieuses. Elle est assurément une étude littéraire, encore qu'elle s'appuie également sur les apports de la médecine, de la politique, de la théologie et de la sociologie. La thèse débute par une étude sur la crainte de la honte sous l'angle classique et dans la tradition de l'éthique aristotélicienne. Elle enchaîne sur l'influence exercée par la philosophie morale d'Aristote sur les premières conceptions modernes de la timidité, vue essentiellement comme passion religieuse en étroit lien avec la conscience. Par ailleurs, à mesure que s'établissait un nouveau code de bienséances (courtoisie, humilité, courtisanerie), le monde largement masculin et le comportement qui s'ensuivit en furent affectés. D'où un changement de l'état culturel de la timidité au cours de l'époque. C'est dire que la timidité se vit entièrement sécularisée et devint, d'émotion religieuse qu'elle avait été, une condition pathologique causée par une humeur mélancolique.Le premier chapitre a, pour objet, l'intérêt porté par Shakespeare pour la différentiation sexuelle de la timidité. Son constat: la prévalence grandissante de la timidité chez les courtisans mâles eut pour effet, à l'époque, la médicalisation de l'émotion. Le chapitre renvoie au roi Henri VI, personnage qui illustre la transformation religieuse et morale de la timidité en une maladie d'homme immoral et politique. Les chapitres suivants, toutefois, font montre d'une perspective nouvelle. Dans Coriolanus, The Merchant of Venice et Measure for Measure, Shakespeare revient sur son idée initiale. Il met en doute la pathogenèse de la timidité pour reprendre le concept aristotélicien de vertu religieuse, éthique et sociale. Dans les pièces citées, un sentiment de timidité apparaît comme un état émotionnel en pleine force maîtresse plutôt que comme la manifestation d'un péché d'orgueil et de vengeance. Il appelle ainsi à une réformation du cœur et de la spiritualité dans une dogmatique chrétienne. Ainsi, par son retour historique aux diverses connotations morales et religieuses liées à l'embarras, la thèse s'emploie ici, dans un renversement du pour au contre, à démythifier l'actuelle et universelle conception de la timidité, tout ensemble gratuite et dénigrante, comme une source profane de stigmatisation médicale.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Rosario, Deborah Hope. "Milton and material culture." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:45542c8d-0049-49cf-8d19-6d206195d9a7.

Full text
Abstract:
In contradistinction to critical trends which have rendered Milton’s thought disembodied, this thesis studies how seventeenth-century material culture informed Milton’s poetry and prose at the epistemic level and by suggesting a palette of forms for literary play. The first chapter explores the early modern culture of fruit. At the epistemic level, practices of fruit cultivation and consumption inform Milton’s imagination and his vocabulary, thereby connecting their historic-material lives with their symbolic ones. Milton further turns commonplace gestures of fruit consumption into narrative devices that frame discussions of agency, aspiration, sinful and right practice. The second chapter examines two floral catalogues to discover how they find shape through the epistemologies of flowers, ceremony, and decorative arts. Here material culture shapes literary convention, as one catalogue is found to secret ceremonial consolation in its natural ingenuousness, while the other’s delight in human physicality upsets the distinctions between inner virtue and outer ornament, faith and rite. In the third chapter, urban epistemologies of light, darkness, movement, and space are examined through urban phenomena: skyline, suburbs, highways, theft, and waterways. By interpellating contemporary debates, these categories anatomise fallen character, intent, action, and their consequences. Milton’s instinctive distaste for urban nuisances is interesting in this Republican figure and is subversive of some ideologies of the text. Discursive and material aspects meet again in the fourth chapter in a discussion of his graphic presentations of geography on the page. Usually prone to analyses of textual knowledge, they are also informed by the embodiment of knowledge as material object. Milton’s search for a fitting cartographic aesthetic for the Biblical narrative and for the rhetoric of his characters leads him to an increasing consciousness of the ideologies energising these material forms. The fifth chapter explores Milton’s engagement with forms of armour and weapons. Military preferences for speed and mobility over armour help Milton explore the difference between unfallen and fallen being. Milton also uses his inescapably proleptic knowledge of arms and armour as a field of imaginative play for representations that are both anachronistic and typological. These lead to a discussion of imitation in the mythic imagination. In each of these studies, we witness Milton’s consciousness of his temporal and proleptic location, and his attempts to marry the temporal and the pan- or atemporal. In the conclusion I suggest that Milton’s simultaneous courting of the atemporal while he is drawn to or draws on temporal material culture imply an incarnational aesthetic.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

Routledge, Amy. "'Dress and undress thy soul' : nakedness and theology in early modern literature and culture." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/5536/.

Full text
Abstract:
This thesis examines how concepts and images of nakedness are used to shape literary and theological meaning and experience within the literature and culture of early modern England. It considers how nakedness functions within a number of key literary and spiritual forms, including theological treatises, the spiritual allegory, religious lyrics, and drama. The first three chapters establish the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of nakedness, through an examination of the Bible, the works of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Anglican Church practice and debate, and anatomical texts and practices. The final three chapters offer a close analysis of the meaning and affect of nakedness within three distinct literary forms. This thesis contends that nakedness has a spiritual potency: a spiritual charge recognised and utilised by early modern theologians, preachers and writers, as they debated, defined and expressed their faith. It considers how far the meaning of nakedness is shaped by gender, and how early modern society negotiated the tensions between bodily sanctity and obscenity, naked praise and pornography. The thesis concludes by reflecting how far tropes and experiences of nakedness in our time remain obscurely charged, albeit in non-theological contexts, with something like theological meaning.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

Berger, Ronit. "Legalizing love : desire, divorce, and the law in early modern English literature and culture /." Saarbrücken : VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2007. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb411164623.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Redmond, Michael John. "The Scence lyes in Italy : representations of Italian culture in early modern English drama." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.321486.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

Calbi, Maurizio. "Approximate bodies : aspects of the figuration of power, gender and eroticism in early modern culture." Thesis, University of Essex, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242233.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
More sources

Books on the topic "Early modern English literature and culture"

1

Psalm culture and early modern English literature. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Mentz, Steve, and Craig Dionne. Rogues and early modern English culture. Edited by ebrary Inc. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Literature and culture in early modern London. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

Roman triumphs and early modern English culture. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Early modern communi(cati)ons: Studies in early modern English literature and culture. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

Women's work in early modern English literature and culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

Textualised objects: Material culture in early modern English literature. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2012.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

Medicinal cannibalism in early modern English literature and culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Find full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Noble, Louise. Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230118614.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

Dowd, Michelle M. Women’s Work in Early Modern English Literature and Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230620391.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
More sources

Book chapters on the topic "Early modern English literature and culture"

1

Ioppolo, Grace. "Early Modern Handwriting." In A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, 177–89. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444319019.ch13.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Hiltner, Ken. "Early Modern Ecology." In A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, 555–68. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444319019.ch82.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Blake, N. F. "The English Language of the Early Modern Period." In A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, 71–80. Malden, MA, USA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470998731.ch6.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
4

O'Connell, Michael. "Continuities between ‘Medieval’ and ‘Early Modern’ Drama." In A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, 477–85. Malden, MA, USA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470998731.ch40.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
5

Nurmi, Arja. "The English Language of the Early Modern Period." In A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, 13–26. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444319019.ch2.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
6

O'Connell, Michael. "Continuities between ‘Medieval’ and ‘Early Modern’ Drama." In A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, 60–69. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444319019.ch43.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
7

Murray, Molly. "Conversion and Poetry in Early Modern England." In A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture, 407–22. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444319019.ch69.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
8

Chess, Simone. "Asexuality, Queer Chastity, and Adolescence in Early Modern Literature." In Queering Childhood in Early Modern English Drama and Culture, 31–55. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72769-1_2.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
9

Noble, Louise. "Epilogue: Trafficking the Human Body: Late Modern Cannibalism." In Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture, 161–64. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230118614_7.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
10

Bardelmann, Claire. "Erotic and Rhetorical Trivializations of Music in the English Epyllion." In Eros and Music in Early Modern Culture and Literature, 161–92. New York: Routledge, 2018. | Series: Routledge studies in Renaissance literature and culture; 44: Routledge, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780429507762-7.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles

Conference papers on the topic "Early modern English literature and culture"

1

Meškova, Sandra. "THE SENSE OF EXILE IN CONTEMPORARY EAST CENTRAL EUROPEAN WOMEN’S LIFE WRITING: DUBRAVKA UGREŠIČ AND MARGITA GŪTMANE." In NORDSCI International Conference. SAIMA Consult Ltd, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.32008/nordsci2020/b1/v3/22.

Full text
Abstract:
Exile is one of the central motifs of the 20th century European culture and literature; it is closely related to the historical events throughout this century and especially those related to World War II. In the culture of East Central Europe, the phenomenon of exile has been greatly determined by the context of socialism and post-socialist transformations that caused several waves of emigration from this part of Europe to the West or other parts of the world. It is interesting to compare cultures of East Central Europe, the historical situations of which both during World War II and after the collapse of socialism were different, e.g. Latvian and ex-Yugoslavian ones. In Latvia, exile is basically related to the emigration of a great part of the population in the 1940s and the issue of their possible return to the renewed Republic of Latvia in the early 1990s, whereas the countries of the former Yugoslavia experienced a new wave of emigration as a result of the Balkan War in the 1990s. Exile has been regarded by a great number of the 20th century philosophers, theorists, and scholars of diverse branches of studies. An important aspect of this complex phenomenon has been studied by psychoanalytical theorists. According to the French poststructuralist feminist theorist Julia Kristeva, the state of exile as a socio-cultural phenomenon reflects the inner schisms of subjectivity, particularly those of a feminine subject. Hence, exile/stranger/foreigner is an essential model of the contemporary subject and exile turns from a particular geographical and political phenomenon into a major symbol of modern European culture. The present article regards the sense of exile as a part of the narrator’s subjective world experience in the works by the Yugoslav writer Dubravka Ugrešič (“The Museum of Unconditional Surrender”, in Croatian and English, 1996) and Latvian émigré author Margita Gūtmane (“Letters to Mother”, in Latvian, 1998). Both authors relate the sense of exile to identity problems, personal and culture memory as well as loss. The article focuses on the issues of loss and memory as essential elements of the narrative of exile revealed by the metaphors of photograph and museum. Notwithstanding the differences of their historical situations, exile as the subjective experience reveals similar features in both authors’ works. However, different artistic means are used in both authors’ texts to depict it. Hence, Dubravka Ugrešič uses irony, whereas Margita Gūtmane provides a melancholic narrative of confession; both authors use photographs to depict various aspects of memory dynamic, but Gūtmane primarily deals with private memory, while Ugrešič regards also issues of cultural memory. The sense of exile in both authors’ works appears to mark specific aspects of feminine subjectivity.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
2

Lestari, Ririn Hunafa, and Badru Zaman. "Developing English Language Skill for Children through Information and Communication Technology in Early Childhood Education." In Tenth International Conference on Applied Linguistics and First International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture. SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.5220/0007169404690474.

Full text
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
3

Hock, Hans Henrich. "Foreigners, Brahmins, Poets, or What? The Sociolinguistics of the Sanskrit “Renaissance”." In GLOCAL Conference on Asian Linguistic Anthropology 2019. The GLOCAL Unit, SOAS University of London, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.47298/cala2019.2-3.

Full text
Abstract:
A puzzle in the sociolinguistic history of Sanskrit is that texts with authenticated dates first appear in the 2nd century CE, after five centuries of exclusively Prakrit inscriptions. Various hypotheses have tried to account for this fact. Senart (1886) proposed that Sanskrit gained wider currency through Buddhists and Jains. Franke (1902) claimed that Sanskrit died out in India and was artificially reintroduced. Lévi (1902) argued for usurpation of Sanskrit by the Kshatrapas, foreign rulers who employed brahmins in administrative positions. Pisani (1955) instead viewed the “Sanskrit Renaissance” as the brahmins’ attempt to combat these foreign invaders. Ostler (2005) attributed the victory of Sanskrit to its ‘cultivated, self-conscious charm’; his acknowledgment of prior Sanskrit use by brahmins and kshatriyas suggests that he did not consider the victory a sudden event. The hypothesis that the early-CE public appearance of Sanskrit was a sudden event is revived by Pollock (1996, 2006). He argues that Sanskrit was originally confined to ‘sacerdotal’ contexts; that it never was a natural spoken language, as shown by its inability to communicate childhood experiences; and that ‘the epigraphic record (thin though admittedly it is) suggests … that [tribal chiefs] help[ed] create’ a new political civilization, the “Sanskrit Cosmopolis”, ‘by employing Sanskrit in a hitherto unprecedented way’. Crucial in his argument is the claim that kāvya literature was a foundational characteristic of this new civilization and that kāvya has no significant antecedents. I show that Pollock’s arguments are problematic. He ignores evidence for a continuous non-sacerdotal use of Sanskrit, as in the epics and fables. The employment of nursery words like tāta ‘daddy’/tata ‘sonny’ (also used as general terms of endearment), or ambā/ambikā ‘mommy; mother’ attest to Sanskrit’s ability to communicate childhood experiences. Kāvya, the foundation of Pollock’s “Sanskrit Cosmopolis”, has antecedents in earlier Sanskrit (and Pali). Most important, Pollock fails to show how his powerful political-poetic kāvya tradition could have arisen ex nihilo. To produce their poetry, the poets would have had to draw on a living, spoken language with all its different uses, and that language must have been current in a larger linguistic community beyond the poets, whether that community was restricted to brahmins (as commonly assumed) or also included kshatriyas (as suggested by Ostler). I conclude by considering implications for the “Sanskritization” of Southeast Asia and the possible parallel of modern “Indian English” literature.
APA, Harvard, Vancouver, ISO, and other styles
You might also be interested in the extended bibliographies on the topic 'Early modern English literature and culture' for particular source types:
Journal articles Dissertations / Theses Books
We offer discounts on all premium plans for authors whose works are included in thematic literature selections. Contact us to get a unique promo code!

To the bibliography