English Literature and Ancient Languages.(Book Review)

Publication: The Modern Language Review

Publication Date: 01-JUL-05

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Modern Humanities Research Association

English Literature and Ancient Languages. By KENNETH HAYNES. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2003. xiv+210 pp. 47 [pounds sterling]. ISBN 0-19-926190-3.

This is an unusual and welcome book, probably the first monograph of its kind, devoted to the influence of the Latin and Greek languages upon English literature from the Renaissance onwards. Of the five chapters, the first three are concerned predominantly with relations between Latin and English literature in earlier centuries, while the final two are concerned with Greek, the emphasis here being mainly on the nineteenth century but looking also to modernism and the twentieth century. The order and proportion of the parts thus broadly illuminate the actual history of the linguistic influence...

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