Interesting Literature

Spenser, Scott, and the Erroneous Origins of ‘Derring-Do’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Some words arise purely by accident. Indeed, even names are sometimes formed because of a mistake: the most famous example is probably Imogen, which is thought to have come about because the Celtic name Innogen (meaning ‘maiden’ or ‘daughter’) was misread as ‘Imogen’.

It’s all Shakespeare’s fault: the name ‘Innogen’ is listed in early stage directions for Much Ado about Nothing, where she’s the silent wife of Leonato and the mother of Hero. But she has no spoken lines and is completely cut from most modern editions of the play, so most people haven’t heard of her. What they do remember is the character Imogen (as it’s usually spelt) who appears in Cymbeline. But ‘Imogen’ was probably originally ‘Innogen’.

A fairly imocuous nnistake, you might say.

The Literary Legacy of the Isle of Portland

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

I was down in Dorset last week, so I thought I’d blog about that this week. Specifically, I thought I’d look into the significance the Isle of Portland has in the annals of English literature. If you’d be expecting Thomas Hardy to figure prominently, you’d be right – though Portland takes us to one of his lesser-known and more bizarre books.

On Welsh Rarebit and Just Desserts

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

I was in north Wales last week, having a little holiday, when I stumbled upon a book in a Caernarfon charity shop that I should really already have owned. Eric Partridge’s Usage and Abusage was first published in 1947 but much of Partridge’s advice about good English still holds good today, and deserves its place beside the Brothers Fowlers’ The King’s English on the shelves of any grammatical stickler and pedant.

Mrs Malaprop, Dogberry, and the Misuse of Words

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Which word is being described here? Ultimately inspired by a play (a comedy) by a well-known playwright whose surname begins with S, the word was derived from the name of a comic character in that play who often uses the wrong word to describe something, with ludicrous results. This word first turns up in print (according to the OED) in the 1830s, although the play which inspired the word was written some time before that.

Cupid Playing Bo-Peep in Stella’s Breasts: Sidney’s Sonnet 11

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

I’m fond of debunking widely believed but factually erroneous ‘truths’ about literature. It’s one reason I began this blog, some years ago when I still had my youthful bad looks. There’s a wonderful word for such truths-that-turn-out-to-be-not-so-true, and it was coined by Norman Mailer in his biography of Marilyn Monroe. It is the word factoid.