This collection offers a cross-disciplinary exploration of the ways in which multilingual practices were embedded in early modern European literary culture, opening up a dynamic dialogue between contemporary multilingual practices and scholarly work on early modern history and literature. The nine chapters draw on translation studies, literary history, transnational literatures, and contemporary sociolinguistic research to explore how multilingual practices manifested themselves across different social, cultural and institutional spaces. The exploration of a diverse range of contexts allows for the opportunity to engage with questions around how individual practices shape national and transnational language practices and literatures, the impact of multilingual practices on identity formation, and their implications for creative innovations in bilingual and multilingual texts. Taken as a whole, the collection paves the way for future conversations on what early modern literary studies and present-day multilingualism research might learn from one another and the extent to which historical texts might supply precedents for contemporary multilingual practices. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, early modern studies in history and literature, and comparative literature.

The aim of each volume of this series Guides to Information Sources is to reduce the time which needs to be spent on patient searching and to recommend the best starting point and sources most likely to yield the desired information. The criteria for selection provide a way into a subject to those new to the field and assists in identifying major new or possibly unexplored sources to those who already have some acquaintance with it. The series attempts to achieve evaluation through a careful selection of sources and through the comments provided on those sources.

This Dictionary is a guide to the literary terms most relevant to students and readers of English literature today, thorough on the essentials and generous in its intellectual scope. With terms as wide-ranging in theme as 'emphasis', 'ekphrasis', 'ecocriticism' and 'epithalamion' the definitions are always lively and precise in equipping students and general readers with a genuinely useful critical vocabulary. Above all, it directs readers to make full use of terms, in navigating the confusing world of literary criticism and discovering the concepts behind terms. It does this with the help of fresh examples, literary timeline and up-to-date bibliography (with recommended websites). Extensive cross-referencing is linked to a thematic index that makes it simple to find related terms (e.g. technical terms for repetition; names for six- or seven-line stanzas) and is explicit about the exact distinctions between such terms as 'metonym' and 'synecdoche', or 'couplet' and 'distich'. In addition to teaching key terms, the Dictionary identifies the thinking and unresolved controversies surrounding them, and offers fresh insights and directions for future reading. It seeks to challenge as well as complement the reader's own ideas about literature. It is a Dictionary for the twenty-first century, both in its broad view of literature in English and its emphasis on readers enjoying poetry, prose and drama.