Time-Bound Words: Semantic and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's

This study argues that changes in English society and the English language are woven together, often in surprising ways, and investigates this claim by following 11 words from Chaucer's time to Shakespeare's. Middle English words like "corage, estat, thrift", and "virt" come to serve the logic of new social discourses by 1611. Language from Chaucer, Wyclif, More, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson and others is examined both as current and emerging usage, and as verbal play that accomplishes cultural work.