ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the seventeenth century – the closing part of the EModE period. We will take a quick look at the century’s history, which was dominated by the English Civil War. We also consider its ‘language history’. The relatively unbridled linguistic developments of the Renaissance gave way to a desire for a more controlled, settled language, and one able to handle the century’s interest in scientic development. The chapter considers some language points, along with the literature of the period. In a nal section, we look forward to what happened to English in the eighteenth century and thereafter.
