ABSTRACT
ISSUES FRAMING A READING OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH
Pinning down ‘English’
Any attempt to clarify the meaning of the word ‘English’ will tend to support Humpty Dumpty’s observation that the meaning of a word is governed by whoever is in control. ‘English’ is a wriggling, elusive kind of term, one which refuses to be pinned down. Rob Pope opens his substantial survey of English Studies by confronting this slipperiness. He summarises the transformations that have taken place across the centuries about what the word ‘English’ is meant to signify (Pope 1998), but the more we try to be precise the more we are likely to end up quarrelling over definitions. By ‘English’, do we mean the language, literatures or Literature, a subject with a set of practices, literacy, or all of the above? The term resists and defies any such simple glossing.
