Time-Bound Words : Semantic and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's
- Author / Editor
- Knapp, Peggy A.
Time-Bound Words : Semantic and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's
- Published
- New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.
- Physical Description
- vii, 224 pp.
- Description
- The words Corage/Courage, Estat/Estate, Fre/Free, Gloss, Kynde/Kind, Lewid/Lewd, Providence, Queynt/Quaint, Sely/Silly, Thrift, and Virtu/Virtue are time-bound. Like all other language, they are bound to and bounded by the social formation in which they occur, the horizon of what is imaginable in a particular time and place. Yet they are also headed into new territory. Each of the words indicates the horizon it helps to define in the Middle Ages and suggests a new understanding of society and culture in the early modern period. These words also influence societal and cultural change, sometimes impeding and sometimes impelling it. Examples of the words are drawn from all of Chaucer's major works.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Language and Word Studies.
- Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.