Before quotation marks became widespread convention, English texts
were organized more fluidly, employing varying lexical and textual
strategies for marking represented discourse. When we add our
present-day quotation marks to editions of Middle English texts, we
also overlay our modern interpretation of speech representation,
with its expectations of faithful reporting and carefully
delineated voices. In doing so, we mask the less-determined nature
of early speech marking, and obscure the ways that its plasticity
functions as a narrative and stylistic tool. This book provides the
first full study of speech representation in pre-modern English.
Studying the pragmatic and discourse strategies of English texts
from 1350-1600 is essential to reading Middle English works and to
understanding the cultural assumptions implicit in the production
of early written texts.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!