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A muse of Fire

41 important questions on A muse of Fire

Samuel Johnson lists important writers from the Elizabethan era. Fill in the grid to show who did what, and who they were…

Writer
Supplied the vocabulary for
This writer’s role / place / job in Elizabethan society was
Bacon

(Natural) science

Scientist
Ralegh (Raleigh)

Navigation, policy and war
Courtier, soldier, explorer, navigator who founded one of the first colonies in America etc.
Spenser

Poetry
Court poet
Shakespeare

Common life
Playwright

List the three reasons given here for the emergence of English as an important language with its own famous literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. .

The Renaissance, The Reformation and the emergence of England as a maritime power.

What does the example of Sir Thomas Elyot tell us about the state of the vocabulary at that time?

There were all kinds of new words adding to the vocabulary but they were not yet so grounded in the English language that everyone knew their precise meaning. They had been borrowed but soon everyone would understand them.

How did the printing press help to spread a recognisable English?

It was part of a communications revolution. It accelerated middle-class education (i.e. the number of readers) and of course the printed word needed to be standardised (not so much in this chapter but mentioned in chapter 2 when Caxton is discussed).

Why did Latin continue to play a role nevertheless?

It remained the language of science and learning, it was still a universal language and the people who learned it learned a more sophisticated Latin than the Latin of the Middle Ages (referred to as ‘dog Latin’).

How did the Renaissance itself force the English to invent, adopt or borrow even more words than the scholar-writers were already adding to the language?

The Renaissance itself was a cultural and scientific revolution which threw up ideas, concepts, inventions and attitudes that were new and needed labels and a vocabulary. In, for instance, physics and medicine, new discoveries were made that needed new words (which often were made from their Latin or Greek sources).

What kind of terms were taken from Dutch and why?

Nautical terms and rough (and sexually explicit) words. This was because the Dutch were the best sailors and navigators of the 16th century, and sailors were generally rough people.

How did Britain’s relations with neighbouring countries in Elizabethan times account for the pride the British felt in using their own language?

The English were steering their own course in politics and religion, fighting many of their (Catholic) neighbours and deriving pride from their feeling that they were holding their ground in doing so, rejecting international influences to the degree that they were even suspicious of borrowing words and championing ‘plainness’ i.e. good simple recognisable English terms.

In what ways did Elizabethan English ‘defy all rules’? Give an example and explain how this specific example defies a rule.

You can use an adverb for a verb, e.g. to ‘happy your friend’ or to ‘malice your enemy’.

Give an example of Shakespeare’s ‘boldness ’in using the English language and try to point out why it is ‘bold’.

‘Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence’ is bold because the simple verb ‘dukes’ stands for ‘he does all that a duke should do’ or he ‘is a good stand-in for the legal duke’. Still, everybody knows (knew) what Shakespeare meant.

Is the portrait on the left a good portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh? Explain why you think it is, or is not. Look not only at the figure, but at the details as well.

It shows him as a courtier but not completely the jack-of-all-trades and the adventurer that he also was. It does show the globe to imply his role as an explorer.

Mention two ways in which / roles through which Ralegh has possibly had an influence on the English language.

He was both a court poet and favourite of the Queen which meant we have poetry written by somebody who had been around the world and was used to exploring new influences as well as nautical terms and words taken from the languages of the people he met while exploring (and plundering).

Why would it be remarkable that a person who ‘sacked’ Cadiz should also write poetry?

You would expect him to be a rough-and-tumble type with no time for delicate or exquisite pastimes

Can you read Hakluyt’s descriptions of the New World more easily than, say, Chaucer’s English? How come? What is the biggest difference between Hakluyt’s English and the English that we use today?

The difference between present-day English and Hakluyt’s English is mainly a matter of spelling. The words he uses are words we still use, whereas the words Chaucer used sometimes came from Middle English and had ‘germanic’roots

What happened to Ralegh’s Roanoake settlement? How was Ralegh’s name tied to the later United States nevertheless (have a look at a map of Virginia if you can’t find the answer in this chapter…)

Roanoake was mysteriously deserted andthere is still a town (city now) called Raleigh in Virginia.

How does Shakespeare’s contribution to the English language go far beyond the introduction of new words?

He played with it, grammatically and with meanings, he coined new phrases and new sayings.

List at least three expressions that we still use (unthinkingly) today that were put into print through Shakespeare’s writing.

E.g. it is all Greek to me, the wish is father to the thought, salad days, vanished into thin air.

Try to describe in less than fifty words why Shakespeare is still seen as the greatest writer in the English-speaking world.

He has written so well about so many human endeavours and questions that he strikes a chord universally.

What reason is given for the appeal of Shakespeare’s works outside the English-speaking world?

The questions raised in his play appeal to all of mankind, not just English speakers.. It helped that he wrote in a language that was to become global.

There are many theories about Shakespeare’s works that suggest that he did not write (allof) them himself. What linguistic argument is given here to support the claim that Shakespeare indeed was the author of the works attributed to him?

There are so many words in his plays that were taken from the region he grew up in, words the other writers would not have known.

How does Shakespeare compare to his contemporary, and predecessor in the theatre, Christopher Marlowe, when it comes to having an ‘ear’ for all the influences on the English language?

Marlowe is more academic, university trained and more ‘ of the court’, Shakespeare is self-educated, son of a man who made gloves.

Take two of the quotes from ‘Hamlet’ mentioned here. Describe what you think they mean. Indicate if you have ever come across this quote in a different context, who used it and why…..

More in sorrow than in anger, Brevity is the soul of wit, etc.

Some of Shakespeare’s characters also dwell on the meaning of English to their personal situation. How do Caliban (The Tempest), Hamlet (Hamlet) and Bottom (A Midsummer Night’s dream) differ in this respect?

Never mind all that, really. I won’t ask it.

Where do we hear many words still pronounced as they were in Elizabethan England?

In the West Counties, in (Southern) Ireland.

Why was the adventurer Ralegh not directly involved with the first permanent English colony in America and how was he involved indirectly nevertheless?

He was out of favour with the king (he was in jail actually), but his nephews were with the expedition

Where was that colony founded? What accent can one still here in that region today?

Chesapeake Bay area, (TangierIsland is specifically mentioned) It is the West Country accent (Devon, Dorset)

Why, do you think, wasn’t Scots introduced as the main variety of English when James I ascended the throne?

There were many more Englishmen, England was always the most powerful partner in the relationship.

Why was ordering a new translation of the Bible such an important decision for the standardization of English?

More and more people were reading the Bible (printing) and now they all were reading it in the same translation, which means in the same English…

Why had vernacular Bibles been frowned upon earlier?

Only the clergy were supposed to understand the Bible and to interpret it.

What is the reason that the James Bible also sounds well, when it is read from?

The translators very deliberately made it sound well, musical.

How does the vocabulary of the James Bible compare to that of Shakespeare’s works? Why is that so? .

Bible used 8.000 words. Shakespeare’s vocabulary is 30.000. The use of a simple vocabulary was deliberate so everybody would understand and enjoy the Bible

Why is it that much of the Eastern seaboard of the United States has East Anglian different accents?

Different groups of different Protestant sects settled in different areas (later to become states).

Were all Puritans the same, i.e. were they equally ‘puritanical’? Mention an example of a rather ‘relaxed’ group.

Some wwere much stricter than others. A ‘ relaxed’ group were the Rhode Island settlers

What is Plymouth Plantation (today) and how is the English of the 1620s more or less preserved there?

Plymouth Plantation is a reconstruction of early Puritan settler life, an open air museum in which people play the roles of settlers and try to speak as the settlers had done.

How is it possible that the first settlers in Plymouth were confronted by Indians speaking pidgin English?

The native Americans had already met fishermen and the (earlier) settlers to the south, and learned the pidgin from them.

Mention five Native American words that have actually entered the English language. What had often happened to these words before they were adopted in the form we know?

Wigwam, pecan, chipmunk, totem, tomahawk, raccoon etc. They had often been shortened (by dropping the 1st syllable)

What percentage of American states has Native American names?

Slightly more than half.

Mention a couple of words that originated through the travels of the early settlers.

Bluff, groundhog, prairie etc.

Mention at least three typically American sounds in their English.

Flat ‘ a’ (fast, dance) flat ‘ o’ (hot, top) voiced ‘r ‘

What other European languages did American English borrow from? Give three examples from each. .

Dutch, Spanish, French. Examples see book

What is ‘accent-levelling’ and how was it speeded up in America through immigration?

Compromises in speech, speech sounds the same everywhere because the wide variety of immigrants had to find common ground. Very often this led to ‘simplification’ in the pronunciation.

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

The story of English | 9780140154054 | Robert McCrum, et al

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