West Midland Elements in the Language of the Auchinleck Couplet Guy of Warwick
A Reinterpretation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8862614 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yuzuru Okumura (University of Toyama, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 39-62 |
| Publication date | 2022-11-23 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | English Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-838X • E-ISSN: 1744-4217 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0013838x.2022.2141485 |
| OpenAlex | W4309747406 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 12 |
Alois Brandl argued in 1893 that the Auchinleck couplet Guy of Warwick (henceforth ACG) was originally composed in the South West Midlands, whereas it has more recently been claimed that dialectal evidence attests to its South Eastern origin. The present article argues, by reinterpreting ACG’s regional spellings, that Brandl’s conclusion is a relatively more likely possibility. ACG’s language exhibits obvious traces of a South West Midland dialect, and those Westernisms are particularly noticeable in ACG’s idiosyncratic rhymes. ACG’s South Western rhymes, as they are conspicuously rare in the other Auchinleck texts copied by the ACG scribe, can reasonably be taken as archetypal, and this strongly indicates that ACG is a unique witness to the existence of a South West Midland archetype in the history of the romance. This conclusion also suggests that the influence of South West Midland materials upon the Auchinleck manuscript was far greater than hitherto recognised
Ancient history · Archetype · Art · Couplet · Linguistics · Literature · Poetry · Reinterpretation · Romance · Witness · Historical Studies of British Isles · Linguistics and language evolution · Medieval Literature and History · History · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|