here - O - Universiteit Leiden

Wednesday12June,10.15-11.15
CarolPercy,UniversityofToronto
Aristocraticin↵uenceandtheEnglishprescriptivetradition:
LordChester⇠eldandhisa⇡erlives
In thisplenary,Iusethe!gureofPhilip Dorm erStanhope,thefourth EarlofChester!eld
(1694–1773),to explorethesigni!canceofaristocratsto eighteenth-century English prescriptivism
.
LordChester!eldappearsinseveralaccountsaboutsomeearlydevelopmentsofthe
tradition.In som eofthem ,hehasclearprestigeforsom esoon-to-bein2uentialcodi!ers.It
iswelknown,forinstance,thatSam uelJohnson dedicated thePlan(1747)forwhatwasto
behisfamousDictionary(1755)to Chester!eld.M oreover,although theelocutionistand
futureorthoepist,theIrishm an 6 om asSheridan deliberatelydid notdedicatehisplan for
British Education (1756)to Chester!eld,Lacking hispermision,Sheridan nevertheles
beganhisplanwithan“Addres”toChester!eld,inhiscapacityastheformerSecretaryof
StateforIreland(1745–46).
YetotheraccountsfeatureChester!eldasasymbolofaristocrats’decliningculturallinguisticin2uence.AsSheridanwasseekingthelord’ssupportforhisplantostandardize
spoken English,Johnson had becom e fam ously estranged from his prospective patron:
indeed,theDictionary’ssupportby such bookselersasRobertD odsley ratherthan by patronsorinstitutionsisregardedasarepresentativedevelopm
entin theprogre sofprintculture,theshi?
to “m arket-driving book-m aking”.Johnson’srejection ofChester!eld wasin
partareactiontosomeesaysinDodsley’speriodical eWorld,in which Chester!eld had
expresedmockanxietyaboutthein2uenceon theforthcomingDictionaryofwom en and
oforallanguage.Infact,whenitwaspublishedthedictionarywasinnovativelyilustrated
withliteraryquotations.
In oneoftheseesaysfor eWorld,Lord Chester!eld had also contrasted whathe
described aspedanticand politespelings.6 isexaggerated opposition between elitemen
and women wasre2ected severaldecadeslater,when somefemalereaderscriticized the
masculine aristocratic valuesexpre sed in Chester!eld’spersonalletersupon the leters’
posthumouspublicationin1774.Intheseleters,writenduringthe1740sandearly1750s
tohisilegitim ateson,Chester!eldem phasizedthefactthatlanguageconstructsratherthan
re2ectsone’sim ageandstatus.Renaisanceconductbookswouldhavem adesim ilarpoints,
butinthispaperIam keentocontextualizeChester!elddeeplyandbroadlyinthe1740s,a
periodpredatingtheproliferationofprescriptivegrammarsandthusseeminglykeytothe
developmentofthetradition.Ishalalsodraw onandfurtherpublicizerecentresearchon
such topicsasprestigein languageand historyand on therelation ofhigh socialclasto
corpus-basedaccountsoflanguagevariationandchange.