Early Tudor Poetry, 1485-1547 (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Early Tudor Poetry, 1485-1547 If we start de novo, then, there are three factors which combine to condition a writer's work: the literary past as known to him, the present state of thought in his particular world, and his own personality. These are the three unknown factors in the equation. He is conditioned by the past, because we inherit both our lan guage and our forms of expression. Surely it is the use only of the language that is personal; few men have invented even a single word, and the expression to choose your words means merely to select from your pitiqy small proportion of the three hundred thousand words in the New English Dictionary the best words at your command. The choice of what language shall be your mother tongue is as far from your power as is the selection of your grandparents. But on the other hand, just as you are you and not the incarnation of any grandparent, the fact that your speech is inherited does not prevent you from expressing your own personality in your use of it. Quite the contrary in fact, since in your conversation you give your past, your educa tion, your home surroundings and your character, and in thus expressing your own individuality, you yet necessarily speak the language of your epoch. The English of today is not the English of Shakespeare, of Dryden, of Addison, of Wordsworth, or of Tennyson; nor is it the English to be used in the year 2000. The change in language is slow, but certain. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.