Ashgate Critical Essays On Early English Lexicographers

Anglo-Saxon lexicography studies Latin texts and words. The earliest English lexicographers are largely unidentifiable students, teachers, scholars and missionaries. Materials brought from abroad by early teachers were augmented by their teachings and passed on by their students. Lexicographical material deriving from the early Canterbury school remains traceable in glossaries throughout this period, but new material was constantly added. Aldhelm and Ælfric Bata, among others, wrote popular, much studied hermeneutic texts using rare, exotic words, often derived from glossaries, which then contributed to other glossaries. Ælfric of Eynsham is a rare identifiable early English lexicographer, unusual in his lack of interest in hermeneutic vocabulary. The focus is largely on context and the process of creation and intended use of glosses and glossaries. Several articles examine intellectual centres where scholars and texts came together, for example, Theodore and Hadrian in Canterbury; Aldhelm in Malmesbury; Dunstan at Christ Church, Canterbury; Æthelwold in Winchester; King Æthelstan's court; Abingdon; Glastonbury; and Worcester.

Three major developments in English lexicography took place during the seventeenth century: the emergence of the first free standing monolingual English dictionaries; the making of new kinds of English lexicons that investigated dialect or etymology or that keyed English to invented 'philosophical' languages; and the massive expansion of bilingual lexicography, which not only placed English alongside the European vernaculars but also handled the languages of the new world. The essays in this volume discuss not only the internal history of lexicography but also its wider relationships with culture and society.

The teaching of Latin remained important after the Conquest but Anglo-Norman now became a language of instruction and, from the thirteenth century onwards, a language to be learned. During this period English lexicographers were more numerous, more identifiable and their works more varied, for example: the tremulous hand of Worcester created an Old English-Latin glossary, and Walter de Bibbesworth wrote a popular contextualized verse vocabulary of Anglo-Norman country life and activities. The works and techniques of Latin scholars such as Adam of Petit Point, Alexander Nequam, and John of Garland were influential throughout the period. In addition, grammarians' and schoolmasters' books preserve material which in some cases seems to have been written by them. The material discussed ranges from a twelfth-century glossary written at a minor monastic house to four large alphabetical fifteenth-century dictionaries, some of which were widely available. Some material seems to connect with the much earlier Old English glossaries in ways not yet fully understood.

The eighteenth century is renowned for the publication of Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language, which reference sources still call the first English dictionary. This collection demonstrates the inaccuracy of that claim, but its tenacity in the public mind testifies to how decisively Johnson formed our sense of what a dictionary is. The essays and articles in this volume examine the already flourishing tradition of English lexicography from which Johnson drew, as represented by Kersey, Bailey, and Martin, as well as the flourishing contemporary trade in encyclopedic, technical, pronunciation, and bilingual lexicons.

Laying the foundations for the first monolingual dictionaries of English, the sixteenth century in English lexicography is here shown to form a bridge between the glossarial compilations which had slowly evolved during the Middle Ages, and the more recognisably modern dictionary incorporating synonymy, illustrative citations and other standard features. The articles collected here treat general lexicography and dictionaries in this period, their uses, and the state of research in this field. The volume also covers a fascinating and diverse collection of lexicographers, from the well known - John Palsgrave, Thomas Cooper, Thomas Elyot and John Florio - to those about whom next to nothing is known - Richard Howlet, John Baret and Peter Levens.

This series of five volumes enshrines the collective achievement of English lexicographers from the Old English period to the eighteenth century. These author-scholars are unique in that they witness and analyze the growth of English vocabulary over nine hundred years. The volumes are organized chronologically and each one is edited and introduced by a recognized authority who has surveyed the existing literature and has selected essays that are regarded as significant contributions to an understanding of the historical development of dictionaries during the period. Also included are several specially commissioned original essays and full indexes. This series constitutes an indispensable reference resource of the key essays in the field and is an invaluable research tool for students of lexicography and English literature, textual history and bibliography.

Before Romantic genius, there was ingenuity. Early modern ingenuity defined every person—not just exceptional individuals—as having their own attributes and talents, stemming from an “inborn nature” that included many qualities, not just intelligence. Through ingenuity and its family of related terms, early moderns sought to understand and appreciate differences between peoples, places, and things in an attempt to classify their ingenuities and assign professions that were best suited to one’s abilities. Logodaedalus, a prehistory of genius, explores the various ways this language of ingenuity was defined, used, and manipulated between 1470 and 1750. By analyzing printed dictionaries and other lexical works across a range of languages—Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, English, German, and Dutch—the authors reveal the ways in which significant words produced meaning in history and found expression in natural philosophy, medicine, natural history, mathematics, mechanics, poetics, and artistic theory.