What existed before there was a subject known as
English? How did English eventually come about? Focusing specifically
on Shakespeare's role in the origins of the subject, Neil Rhodes
addresses the evolution of English from the early modern period up to
the late eighteenth century. He deals with the kinds of literary and
educational practices that would have formed Shakespeare's experience
and shaped his work and traces the origins of English in certain
aspects of the educational regime that existed before English
literature became an established part of the curriculum. Rhodes then
presents Shakespeare both as a product of Renaissance rhetorical
teaching and as an agent of the transformation of English in the
eighteenth century into the subject that emerged as the modern study of
English.
By transferring terms from contemporary disciplines, such as 'media
studies' and "creative writing", or the technology of computing, to
earlier cultural contexts Rhodes aims both to invite further reflection
on the nature of the practices themselves, and also to offer new ways
of thinking about their relationship to the discipline of English. Shakespeare and the Origins of English
attempts not only an explanation of where English came from, but
suggests how some of the things that we do now in the name of "English"
might usefully be understood in a wider historical perspective. By
extending our view of its past, we may achieve a clearer view of its
future.