Questions possibles pour le dst de littérature anglaise PDF

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Questions possibles pour le dst de littérature anglaise (cours sur Shakespeare)...

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Linguistic prestige, nationalism It is a known fact that languages are in continuous evolution, which can depend on social, chronological or space-related factors. This notwithstanding, an idea of a linguistic “purity”, determining linguistic prestige, was widespread in the past and is still debated nowadays, although its supporters are highly outnumbered. In the specific case of English, there was a controversy over the so-called “inkhorn” terms from the mid16th to the mid-17th century, during the transition from Middle English (conventionally from 1066 to 1476) to Modern English (conventionally from 1476 to nowadays). The controversy in question perfectly reflected the two attitudes towards language at the beginning of the Early Modern period: one was in favour of foreign linguistic influences and the other was against them, advocating for a “pure” language instead. In order to reconstruct and periodise the development of a language, English in this particular case, the assumption of some conventional truths, which are generally accepted for the sake of convenience, is required. These truths are the division in various periods typically of the same length and the consideration in two different moments of external and internal factors, which could not really be separated, having a key role in the linguistic evolution. Indeed, the development of the English language can be periodized according to two paradigms: external, mainly historical events and shifts in internal, structural terms. First and foremost, the development of English is usually divided into three phases of five hundred years each: Old English, which conventionally starts in 450, with the first Anglo-Saxon settlement, Middle English, from 1066 with the Norman conquest under William the Conqueror, and Modern English, from 1476 with the establishment of the first English printing press by William Caxton. Before what is called Old English, there is the Roman occupation, from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD, which leaves some words linked with constructions and the history of the territory (street, wall, Manchester). Old English starts to be shaped thanks to the Anglo-Saxon (Germanic tribes) settlement (450). There is an important issue of identity in the 8th and 9th centuries: Viking raids in 792 and Danish ones in 865 are perceived as real invasions, people in England do not see themselves anymore as connected with the north of Europe. Middle English sees a limited influence of French, which is the elite language at the beginning, spoken in parliament, but it is gradually replaced by English, used in the English Parliament for the first time in 1362. It also replaces Latin as main language in schools in 1385, apart from universities of Oxford and Cambridge. This is the beginning of the rise of English both as a literary and institutional language. Concerning Modern English, it can be further divided in Early (until the half of the XVIII century) and Late Modern (until today). Early modern witnesses issues due to the printing press, which, instead of solving problems due to standardisation, creates them by making people aware of the existence of different varieties of language; the publication of Shakespeare’s plays (end of the 16th century-beginning of the 17th) King James Version of “The Bible” (1611) and the publication of the dictionary of the English Language (1755). Late modern is

mainly marked by events concerning colonisation and witnesses the publication of the Oxford English Dictionary. Besides, from a linguistic point of view, some major shifts concerning the gradual loss of inflection and the evolution of pronunciation can be taken into account. In terms of inflection, Old English is a synthetic language, full of declensions, word morphology and inflection which clarify the function of words in a sentence and allow more variegated structures in terms of word order. Inflections are lost over a thousand years, that is, Middle English levels them and Modern English loses them becoming an analytic language, where word order is essential (nowadays there is just the -s as mark of the plural and of the third person singular for the present simple and -ed as mark of the past). Among the explanations for the loss of inflection, the shift of the stress towards the beginning of the syllable in Germanic languages has to be mentioned. This tendency makes the unstressed syllable, that is the last one, gradually disappear in many cases. With respect to pronunciation, the last major structural change is the so-called Great Vowel Shift, that occurs during the last fifty years of the 15th century and it is linked to the imitation of the city variety, considered as the prestigious one, although English was very young from the point of view of official use. It entails a higher pronunciation of vowels in one’s phonatory system, so that each vowel occupied one position higher ([a] becomes [æ], [u] becomes a diphthong: [ju], etc.). This change marks the passage from Middle to Early Modern English, called Modern because no major structural shifts have happened since then, its lexis is established and mainly comprehensible today. To sum up, although history and language mutually influence each other, when dealing with the periodisation of the development of a language, they can be considered separately for a matter of convenience. The conventional periodisation of English into three periods of five hundred years, Old, Middle and Modern English helps creating a mental order both when one considers the historical paradigm (historical events: invasions, colonisation, etc.) and when one considers the structural, linguistic one (gradual loss of inflection, modification in pronunciation, etc.).

Linguistic prestige, nationalism It is a known fact that languages are in continuous evolution, which can depend on social, chronological or space-related factors. This notwithstanding, an idea of a linguistic “purity”, determining linguistic prestige and strongly linked to nationalism, was widespread in the past and is still debated nowadays, although its supporters are highly outnumbered. In the specific case of English, there was a controversy over the socalled “inkhorn” terms from the mid-16th to the mid-17th century. The controversy in question perfectly reflected the two attitudes towards language at the beginning of the Early Modern period: one was in favour of the unavoidable foreign linguistic influences and the other was against them, advocating for a

“pure” language instead. Against a closing idea, which is rather impossible to concretise, Shakespeare and queen Elizabeth I, symbolically the quintessence of English, were both at ease with the prestige languages of their period. Indeed, translators party won, and foreign influences could not be stopped. The above-mentioned “inkhorn controversy” was an intellectual battle between two different ideologies which were in favour or not of borrowing terms from other languages, in particular those with Latin roots, called “inkhorn terms” because of their length, especially if compared to Germanic ones. In the absence of a specific, strong institution proposing norms, like a language academy, as it was the case in England in this period, linguistic controversies arise, like the one in question, which took place during the transition from Middle English (from 1066 to 1476) to Modern English (from 1476 to nowadays). After displacing French in Parliament for the first time in 1362, English competed with Latin as the main language of science and learning in England; although it replaced Latin as main language in schools in 1385, universities of Oxford and Cambridge still had Latin as main language. On the one hand, some intellectuals thought “inkhorn words”, usually long and polysyllabic (e.g. “orgoulous” instead of “proud” in Middle English), highly borrowed by Early Modern English with a change of ending, were not worth the effort, and were in favour of the idea of “purity” and “simplicity” of the Anglo-Saxon language (although it already contained other languages). The other faction firmly believed English needed more sophisticated words to improve, so it was important to take these words and use them in English either by taking them in their original form or by modifying them. It is true that in the age of the Tudors, especially Elizabeth I, who had a long, stable reign and a prestigious, distinguishing position in Europe, the boundaries and the purity of Englishness were preserved. Nevertheless, that very same queen was entirely at ease with the prestigious languages of her time. Also Shakespeare, quintessential English poet, was at ease with the prestige languages of his period. Against the supposed purity of the language, translators won, language cannot be pure; in order to keep a language “pure”, one should stop all communication with any other people in the world.

To conclude, although all cultures have (or had) the idea that there was a moment when their language rose, if one starts thinking of their language as containing various other languages, the idea of purism crumbles. The only way of keeping a language “pure” would be stopping all communication with other people in the world, which is impossible, especially in the age of globalisation. Moreover, people tend to think about English as a language that exports words, but it actually imported and still imports a lot of words from other languages.

Myths about Shakespeare

It cannot be denied that Shakespeare is a quintessential English writer, perhaps the most famous one, thanks to his works, dealing with passions of humanity (in more or less localised situations). His greatness is worldwide recognised. Yet, there are some myths to be debunked: the impossibility to understand him without translation, the size of his vocabulary and his invention of words. Does this debunking make him any less great? Considering the debunking in question valid, Shakespeare’s greatness must lie somewhere else. First and foremost, it is a widespread idea that it impossible to understand Shakespeare’s works without translating or paraphrasing them. In this regard, a distinction between difficulty of language and difficulty of thought should be made. It is a known fact that Early Modern English is mainly similar to current English. Therefore, since no major structural shift has happened since then, it is perfectly understandable. Only 510% of Shakespeare’s grammar actually causes problems. Then, as David Crystal writes in his book “Think on my words, Exploring Shakespeare’s Language” (2008), people should just be more fluent in Shakespearean (like it was a foreign language, yet, this does not exclude translation, which is extremely important when learning a foreign language) in order to simply understand Shakespeare by reading him. In most cases, Crystal writes, a “simplification” rather than a translation is involved. Secondly, Shakespeare’s vocabulary is often thought to be “the largest vocabulary of any English writer”, as David Crystal writes in the above-mentioned book. Nevertheless, any modern writer has a bigger vocabulary than Shakespeare because of the invention of a lot of new words (like computer words, etc.), he simply couldn’t know them. Although commentators should focus on Shakespeare’s creativity, they seem to be obsessed with the amount of words he knew and used. The writer did have a large vocabulary for his period (about 20.000 words without counting variant forms separately) because of the variety of works he wrote, such as historical plays, love stories, etc. Yet, it is not comparable to a contemporary writer’s vocabulary. Thirdly, Shakespeare is seen as a creator of words, a considerable amount of the English language. However, it is difficult to state clearly who invented a word even nowadays, so it was in Shakespearean time. The writer lived in a multilingual environment, he did what translators were doing, for example adding suffixes to Latin or Greek words in order to bring them into English (e.g. civilitas → civility; antiquitas → antiquity). It is important to bear in mind that the age in which he wrote was one of the most lexically inventive periods in the history of the language. It is precisely in this period that the inkhorn controversy takes place. It was an intellectual battle between two different ideologies which were in favour or not of borrowing terms from other languages, in particular those with Latin roots, called “inkhorn terms” because of their length. Considering this, the reason why Shakespeare invented a specific word rather than another is a more interesting point of reflection than simply wondering why he invented words.

To sum up, Shakespeare’s works are understandable for a contemporary reader and the debunking of the above-mentioned myths (especially that of invention and quantity, as called by David Crystal) does not make Shakespeare any less great. His greatness lies in his creativity more than in quantity of words known or invented....