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Thomas Jefferson and the Anglo-Saxon Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Stanley R. Hauer
Stanley R. Hauer*
Affiliation:
University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg
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Abstract

Throughout his life, Jefferson maintained an active but intermittent interest in the study of Old English. He collected a sizable library in the subject and advocated the utility of Old English to the professions, especially law. His major work, the Essay on the Anglo-Saxon Language, proposed radical simplifications in pedagogy and instituted at the University of Virginia the first college course of Old English ever taught in America. In several important ways Jefferson accurately predicted the future of Old English studies, and he rightly criticized the Latinate bias of contemporary grammars. Nevertheless, his ignorance of Germanic philology undermined many of his ideas on the grammar and phonology of Old English.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 98 , Issue 5 , October 1983 , pp. 879 - 898
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1983

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