Romanticism and Linguistic Theory: William Hazlitt, Language and Literature

ISBN-13: 9780230218338 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 201 str.

Marcus Tomalin

Opis

This innovative and ground-breaking study explores the complex relationship between linguistic theory and literature during the Romantic period. Several topics in eighteenth-century linguistics are discussed, and the philological interests of figures such as William Godwin, Leigh Hunt, Percy Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas De Quincey are considered. However, it is William Hazlitt's writings about natural language and linguistic theory that provide the central focus, and several crucial issues are considered. In particular, Hazlitt's ambivalent response to the philosophical grammar movement and to the linguistic theorising of John Horne Tooke is revealed in its true complexity, while his views concerning the 'familiar style' are provocatively reinterpreted in the context of the grammar textbook and belletristic rhetoric traditions. In addition, it is shown that Hazlitt's literary criticism was profoundly influenced by his understanding of linguistic theory, an aspect of his work that has been largely ignored in the past.

Recenzje

'...splendid and illuminating.' - Carol Percy, Oxford Journals

Spis treści

Introduction Linguistic Theory in the Eighteenth Century Philology and Philosophical Grammar The Implications of Style The Languages of Literature Victorian Perspectives Bibliography Index

O autorze

MARCUS TOMALIN is a Fellow of Downing College and an Affiliated Lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses upon literature and linguistic theory during the Romantic period, as well as missionary linguistics and the development of syntactic theory. His many publications include Linguistics and the Formal Sciences (2006).