Etymology and the Invention of English in Early Modern Literature

Hannah Crawforth is a lecturer in Early Modern Literature at King's College London, where she is also one of the founding members of the London Shakespeare Centre. She has published articles in a range of journals and edited collections, and is textual editor for the Norton Shakespeare's new edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen.

• Preface; Introduction: etymology in early modern literature; 1. Etymology and estrangement in the poems of Edmund Spenser; 2. Etymology and textual time in the masques of Ben Jonson; 3. Etymology and place in Donne's sermons; 4. Etymology and the ends of idealism in Milton's prose; Conclusion: a world in a word; Bibliography.

'… what [Crawforth] delivers most of all is an intriguing, compelling, wonderfully considered account of the linguistic worlds of early modern writers, with their special awareness of the soft and hard landings words have in the world.' Raphael Lyne, The Cambridge Quarterly