A Note on the Use of Renaissance Dictionaries

Abstract

ROFESSOR Einar Haugen, in monograph in which he has recently made available to English-speaking scholars the earliest Germanic phonology, unique First Grammatical Treatise by an anonymous Icelandic author of twelfth century, has noted, in passing, an interesting parallel between First Grammarian's work and remarks on spelling reform made by sixteenth-century English lexicographer, John Baret.1 One would almost think, Professor Haugen says of Baret, that he had drawn his ideas directly from F[irst] G[rammatical] T[reatise], if this were not entirely excluded. Perhaps it may be useful to draw, for students of English literature in Renaissance, obvious, but too often neglected, conclusion which follows from such a striking testimony to range and permanence of a learned tradition. I shall proceed to this conclusion by examining significance of a number of parallel passages, taken chiefly, as Professor Haugen's remark would suggest, from Renaissance dictionaries. The passages cited will serve, I hope, not only to establish my simple thesis but to clarify some problems in history of English lexicography and to give fuller meanings to some lines in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. No one today would question value of Renaissance textbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias in process of recovery which must precede interpretation of Renaissance literature. Such scholars, for example, as Professor T. W. Baldwin have shown relevance of dictionaries like John Baret's one work, primarily English-Latin Alvearie of 1573, or like great Latin-English Thesaurus (1565) of Th mas Cooper to interpretation of Shakespeare. Some of results of these and similar studies have been good; obscure passages have been illuminated, and new or fuller meanings have been found in passages which seemed to offer no great difficulty. To take a few instances of my