The problem of dialect which so troubled Caxton in the fifteenth century was still an issue when George Puttenham published his The Arte of English Poesie in 1589. Puttenham’s purpose is to advise poets which dialect to write in. Exercise Describe the assumptions about language which are evident in the text. Comment particularly on (a) his use of the word corruptions, (b) his reference to a language which is naturall, pure and the most vsuall, (c) his references to the inferiour sort of men and women, (d) the attitude implied in any speach vsed beyond the riuer of Trent.This is not to say that dialect could not be used to brilliant effect in literature. We have already seen Chaucer’s use of the Northern dialect in The Reeve’s Tale, and William Shakespeare’s Henry V has another famous example.Exercise The names of the captains in the comic dialogue above, Gower, Fluellen, Mackmorrice, and Iamy, give them away as an Englishman, a Welshman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman. Discuss some of the dialect features which Shakespeare attempts to represent. Richard Verstegan, in his A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (1605), discusses the existence of dialects: This is a thing that easely may happen in so spatious a toung as this, it beeing spoken in so many different countries and regions, when wee see that in some seueral partes of England it self, both the names of things and pronountiations of woords are somwhat different, and that among the countrey people that neuer borrow any woords out of Latin or French, and of this different pronountiation one example in steed of may shal suffise, as this: for pronouncing according as one would say at London, I would eat more cheese yf I had it / the northern man saith, Ay sud eat mare cheese gin ay hadet / and the westerne man saith: Chud eat more cheese an chad it. Lo heer three different pronoutiations in our own countrey in one thing, & heerof many the lyke examples might be alleaged. More dialect features are to be found in a passage from Shakespeare’s King Lear:Exercise Edgar, the Duke of Gloucester’s son, banished by King Lear, disguises himself as a madman – a Tom of Bedlam. At one point, defending his blinded father, his speech becomes clearly dialectal. In the above passage, Gloucester does not recognise his son and cannot see him. The Steward believes Edgar to be a beggar. Which of Richard Verstegan’s examples does Edgar’s speech resemble? The scene of the play is set in Kent. The words ice try stand for I sal try. Sal for shall and gate for way are both northern forms. Is Shakespeare accurately reproducing a regional dialect? Another significant feature of the passage above is the changing use of the second person pronouns thou/thee/thine and ye/you/your. Is there any system to the appearance of these forms? Is it the same as it would be in Middle English? George Fox (1624-1691) was the son of a Leicestershire weaver who experienced a religious conversion and became a preacher, and eventually a founder of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. At this time, failure to conform to the doctrines and practice of the Church meant civil penalties, and he was gaoled (jailed) many times. During a long stay in a Worcester gaol, he dictated his experiences to his son-in-law (and fellow prisoner). The following text is a reproduction of a letter to Justice Bennett, who first coined the term ‘Quakers’ in 1650. The Journal of George Fox (1650) ...thou wast the first man in the nation that gave the people the name quaker And Called them quakers, when thou Examinest George in thy house att Derbey (which they had never the name before) now A Justice to wrong name people, what may the brutish people doe, if such A one A Justice of peace gives names to men, but thou art Lifted upp proud and haughty and soe turnest Against the Just one given upp to misname the saints, and to make lyes for others to beeleve. The grammar and lack of punctuation are typical for a letter for this time, as we have seen. What is remarkable is Fox’s insistence on using thou to a Justice of the Peace. In 1660, he published a pamphlet on the subject. He believed that the use of thou to address one person was a mark of equality between people, whereas it had long been used to mark social superiority or inferiority. George Fox, A Battle-Door for Teachers (1660) For all you Doctors, Teachers, Schollars, and School-masters, that teach people in your Hebrew, Greek, Latine, and English Grammars, Plural and Singular; that is, Thou to one, and You to many, and when they learn it, they must not practice it: what good doth your teaching do them? for he is a Novice, and an Ideot, and a fool called by You, that practises it; Plural, You to many; and Singular, Thou to one. Exercise Fox’s is full of accounts of violent attacks on Fox and his followers for their faith and preaching. The extract on the next page is typical and makes a useful indicator of one variety of written style in the seventeenth century. Compare it to the ‘aureate’, or rhetorical, style in the extracts taken from A Speech of Mr John Milton for the Liberty of Vnlicenc'd Printing, to the Parliament of England, printed in the Yeare 1644', known as Areopagitica (after the Areopagus, the highest civil court in Ancient Athens).The Journal of George Fox, 1652 (iv) ... then we went away to Balby about a mile off: & the rude people layde waite & stoned us doune the lane but blessed be ye Lorde wee did not receive much hurte: & then ye next first day (= Fox’s term for Sunday) I went to Tickill & there ye friends (= members of the Society of Friends) of yt side gathered togeather & there was a meetinge (= Quaker term for a religious service). And I went out of ye meetinge to ye steeplehouse & ye preist & most of ye heads of ye parish was gott uppe Into ye chancell & soe I went uppe to ym & when I began to speake they fell upon mee & ye Clarke uppe with his bible as I was speakinge & hitt mee in ye face yt my face gusht out with bloode yt I bleade exceedingely in ye steeplehouse & soe ye people cryed letts have him out of ye Church as they caled it: & when they had mee out they exceedingely beate mee & threw me doune & threw mee over a hedge: & after dragged mee through a house Into ye street stoneinge & beatinge mee: & they gott my hatt from mee which I never gott againe. Soe when I was gott upon my leggs I declared to ym ye worde of life & showed to ym ye fruites of there teachers &