In this episode, I intend to create a convergence of two different threads of previous articles.

[Episode 29], where I talk about the emergence of Common Law with its Anglo-Saxon origins, and the very last episode, which talks about the emergence of the English language - stronger, slimmer, sleeker, after being ‘underground’ for more than two centuries, its own wilderness years which could have led it to extinction, form a sort of ‘systems’ thread discussing bottom-up emergence.

[Episode 30B] which deals with the Roman intellectual giant, Cicero, and his cementing Latin as a supreme literary force, and [Episode 34] where we met Petrarch with his paradoxes of leaning towards the Ciceronian Latin past but unwittingly ending up setting the stage for the modern language, are a kind of ‘literary’ thread.

This piece, as it were, seeks to be the third part completing the two different trilogies, and in the process uncovering some remarkable lessons in human achievement. Let’s get right into it.

Read full article here.

Article written by Ash Stuart

Images and voice narration generated by AI

Further Reading & Reference

Turner, Marion. (2019). Chaucer - A European Life. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-­0691160092

* Horobin, Simon & Smith, Jeremy. (2002). An Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-1480-X.

* Barber, Charles & Beal, Joan C. & Shaw, Philip A.. (2009). The English Language A Historical Introduction. Second. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-85404-7.

* Corrie, Marilyn. (2009). A concise companion to Middle English literature. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4051-2004-3.

* Crystal, David. (2012). Spell it out: the singular story of English spelling. Profile Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84668-567-5.

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