The development of the language is a stream one can wade into anywhere;
myself, post "the great vowel shift," I think one would have to look for
the change to a recognizably modern standard literary English precisely in
Dryden and his contemporaries (think of Sprat and the other Royal Society
types, but it's also in the not-for-publication diaries of Pepys and
Evelyn, and of course in most of the other playwrights). They were in fact
very aware of what they were doing--by analogy with developments in France,
and perhaps for similar reasons. Living through civil wars can make one
long for homogeneity.
Mark
> > and that Shakespeare helped canonize.
>
>There's a better case (such as it is) to be made for the King James Bible
>fulfilling this role. It was much more widely read, at least early on, than
>Shakespeare, and more "authoritative". Shakespeare only becomes the
>(official) central figure that he is with Garrick and the 18thC
>institutionalisation of his work.
>
> > The same as with Dante, no more no less.
>
>Which is where the parallel with Dante breaks down, I think. Dante was
>revered much more immediately. Nobody (later) dismissed the crudity of
>Dante's language in the fashion that Dryden (unexceptionally for his time)
>slagged-off the language in Shakespeare's plays.
>
> > erminia (waiting for my hair to grow long again overnight during our usual
> > Sabat).
>
>Luck!!
>
>Robin
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