Introduction: Etymology in early modern literature -- Etymology and estrangement in the poems of Edmund Spenser -- Etymology and textual time in the masques of Ben Jonson -- Etymology and place in Donne's sermons -- Etymology and the ends of idealism in Milton's prose -- Conclusion: A world in a word
Summary
Crawforth presents a major re-reading of early modern poetry, demonstrating its debt to the emergence of linguistics in the period
