The Victorians and English Dialect

Philology, Fiction, and Folklore

Matthew Townend (Professor of English, Professor of English, University of York)

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English

Oxford University Press
07 June 2024

Historical & comparative linguistics; Dialect, slang & jargon; Palaeography (history of writing)

The Victorians and English Dialect tells the story of the Victorians' discovery of English dialect, and of the revaluation of local language that was brought about by the new, historical philology of the nineteenth century. Regional dialects came to be seen not as corrupt or pernicious, but rather as venerable and precious.

The book examines the work of the ground-breaking collectors of the 1840s and 1850s, who first alerted their contemporaries to the importance of local dialect - and also to the perils that threatened it with extinction.

It traces the connection between dialect and literature, in the flourishing of dialect poetry and the foregrounding of regional voices in Victorian fiction. It explains how the antiquity of regional dialects cast light on the national past - the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings - and how dialect study was also at the heart of the discovery of local folklore and oral culture: old words, old customs, old beliefs. And it tells the story of the three great monuments of Victorian dialect study that marked the apogee of regional philology: the 80 publications of the English Dialect Society (1873-96), an organization run by a committee of journalists and local historians in Manchester; the nationwide survey of The Existing Phonology of English Dialects (1889), which listened in on local speech in market squares and third-class railway carriages; and the multi-volume English Dialect Dictionary (1898-1905), which collected all the previous labours together, and made an enduring record of Victorian dialect.

By: Matthew Townend (Professor of English Professor of English University of York)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 241mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 672g
ISBN: 9780198888123
ISBN 10: 0198888120
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 07 June 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Matthew Townend is Professor in the Department of English and Related Literature, and the Centre for Medieval Studies, at the University of York, where he has taught since 1999. He is an expert both on medieval language and literature (especially Old Norse, Old English, and the history of the English language) and also on nineteenth- and twentieth-century 'medievalism' (that is, the re-imagining of the Middle Ages in modern literature and culture). He teaches widely - from undergraduate courses to PhD supervision - in the areas of medieval language and literature, and also modern medievalism.