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I second Kenneth Gross's point that it is in translation that the "nature" of English (whatever it is) is tested and discovered in this period, but perhaps the most systematic work on translation was done by Bible translators. Tyndale, for instance, had much to say about the qualities of English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, especially in relation to each other. One of his notable comments was that it was easier to translate Hebrew into English than into Latin, because of the relative affinities of these languages. Since we are in the mode of recommending reading, I'll put in a plug for Brian Cummings, _Grammar and Grace_, which offers a fascinating new perspective on the literary culture of the English Reformation by approaching it through fine points of grammar, as they are worked out by the Bible translators. As he notes, not only is it in the process of translation that the translators discover the peculiar characteristics of English, but the language itself is transformed by the process. To what extent was "English" the same language pre- and post-Reformation? Hannibal Hamlin ==============Original message text=============== On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:23:29 -0700 Katherine Eggert wrote: On the question of the gendering of the English tongue, I heartily recommend Margaret Ferguson's terrific new book _Dido's Daughters: Literacy, Gender, and Empire in Early Modern England and France_ (Chicago, 2003). Among the advantages of English in the early modern period was that it could (eventually) be differentiated from languages with which English was uncomfortably allied or to which it was indebted -- French, Welsh, Gaelic, Scots -- languages that all "shared the paradoxical (and labile) quality of being 'abnormal' with respect to a norm associated with English masculinity [, w]hether the abnormality took the form of too little masculinity (effeminacy) or too much (barbaric aggressivity)" (Ferguson 161).. Katherine Eggert Associate Professor of English Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies Department of English University of Colorado 226 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0226 tel and Voicemail (303) 492-8643 fax (303) 492-8904 [log in to unmask] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kenneth Gross" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 7:54 PM Subject: Re: what was English good for? > Some years ago William Kerrigan wrote an essay entitled "The Articulation > of the Ego in the English Renaissance," published in The Literary Freud, > edited by Joseph Smith. I recall a somewhat relentless but suggestive > account of the psychodynamics of moving between Latin (the Father tongue) > and English (the mother tongue). > > One of the things English was good for, I suppose, was to translate the > literature of other languages into, on which process Tom Greene wrote so > eloquently. > > Ken Gross > ===========End of original message text===========