Exhausting Middle English

Language is a constant dialectic between energy and exhaustion: as new words and expressions come into use, others pass away. While dynamic is ongoing, few periods in the English language have witnessed as much, and as rapid, change as the early 16^th century, which saw the demise of what we now term Middle English, and the rise of our modern form of the language. In this talk, Megan Cook, assistant professor of English, will ask how readers and writers in early modern England understood language change, and how they came to recognize certain kinds of language as archaic or obsolete.

Sponsored by the Center for the Arts and Humanities.