Home  Types of source 18th-century Anna Seward First quotations
Language of Seward's letters
The vast majority of OED1's quotations from Seward - around 230 out of
just under 240 - are from prose sources. Of these 230, a handful come from her biography of
Erasmus Darwin and almost all the remainder from her letters, mostly quoted from Constable's
six-volume collection of 1811 but very occasionally from other sources (e.g. Polwhele's
Traditions and Recollections).
The first question is why this these quotations should have got into OED in the
first place, given the Dictionary's almost complete lack of interest in Seward's poetry. It
is always possible that a particularly enthusiastic reader for OED1 worked through
Constable's edition, excerpting as she or he went. Almost no mention of Anna Seward has been
noticed in the OED archives to date (i.e. Oxford University Press's own collection
of letters and papers relating to the compilation and publishing of the OED from
its earliest days), so there is no positive indication of this. But since comparatively
little archival evidence survives for the management and distribution of the vast quantities
of reading done for the first edition of OED, we can't rule out this explanation
(for some surviving material, see our pages on OED1's compilation and FJF's notebook.
However, if we look through the list of entries for which Seward is quoted, as identified in
electronic searching of OED, a particular characteristic leaps to the eye: many of
the words are striking and unusual. This feature on its own, we might imagine, would make
them especially eligible for inclusion.
To make the point, here is a list of 23 uncommon-looking locutions taken
from a sample of just 50 quotations from Seward altogether (the first 50
occurring in the OED, i.e. listed in alphabetical order of the word illustrated):[1]
Seward Table 5
Word
|
Date and source (as given in OED) |
addio, int.
|
1789 |
A. Seward Let. 5 Feb. (1811) II. 23 |
| authorism
|
1805
|
Miss Seward in Trad. & Recoll. |
concave, v.
|
1795 |
A. Seward Lett. 16 Nov. IV. 118
|
| crescent, v.
|
a1809 |
Miss Seward Lett. VI. 195 (T.)
|
| Dantean, a.
|
1785
|
A. Seward Let. 25 Aug. (1811) I. 77 |
| drop-bolt
|
1786
|
A. Seward Lett. I. 225 |
| dupism
|
1798
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) V. 171 |
| elapse, n.
|
1793
|
A. Seward in Parr's Wks. (1828) VII |
| freightless, a.
|
1795
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) IV. 94
|
| ghostism
|
1798
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) V. 176
|
| girlism |
1788
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) II. 186
|
Gothicize, v.
|
1798
|
A. Seward Let. 2 Oct. (1811) V. 155 |
gradatory, a.
|
1793
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) III. 202
|
grandmotherism, n.
|
1806
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) VI. 324
|
harbourless, a.
|
1795
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) IV. 107
|
high-toned, a.
|
1804
|
A. Seward Mem. Darwin 49
|
hostilize, v.
|
1794
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) III. 376 |
hushy, a.
|
1803
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) VI. 97
|
icteric, a. and n.
|
1804
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) VI. 141
|
illocal, a.
|
1804
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) VI. 180
|
immomentous, a.
|
1805
|
A. Seward Lett. (1811) VI. 236
|
impersonify, v.
|
1804
|
A. Seward Mem. Darwin 186
|
| impersonize, v. |
1804 |
A. Seward Mem. Darwin 188 |
If we look up each of the individual words for which Seward is cited in the OED
itself, a further striking characteristic emerges:
- 113 of her 237 quotations are for 'first cited use' in the
OED: i.e., they are the earliest record the OED has been able to
find for the particular word or sense they illustrate. (This is true not just of the
obviously unusual words such as are listed above, but more ordinary ones like
girlhood, impermanence, invalidism and many others)
and
- of these 113 first cited uses, 44 are hapax legomena, i.e.,
Seward's quotations furnish the only examples of use that the OED
has been able to find.
These are truly remarkable proportions, giving us valuable information about Seward's use of
language. While in writing poetry (see Seward's poetry) she employed highly conventional diction,
in writing letters she was much more innovative.
Any reader will feel that the exploratory, often exuberant use of language in the letters
makes them immensely readable and enjoyable (in contrast to the clogging effect of the
ornamented and archaic diction of the poems), and suspect that Seward is exploiting the
language resources of her day with some creativity. Indeed, Seward herself often
acknowledges this when she introduces a novel word with a phrase such as 'if I may be allowed to coin that epithet' or 'if I may be allowed to coin a word,
which is lawfully compounded'. OED's evidence on the originality of Seward's
epistolary diction furnishes a demonstrable objective basis for this impression (and see
further Seward's own
view on the value of neologisms, quoted on our next page).
Of course, at any stage new evidence may come to light from other sources, showing that
other writers as well as Seward used these words either before she did or at the same time:
OED can never be sure that it really has identified the first (or the sole) example
of use. The cumulative nature of its evidence on Seward, however, points clearly to a
consistent level of linguistic innovation on her part.
See further our pages on Seward's First
quotations and Hapax
legomena respectively.
Footnote
[1] Searching on 29 October 2009 on the
OED2 Advanced search page in QUOTATIONS containing ('A Seward' in QUOTATION AUTHOR
or 'Anna Seward' in QUOTATION AUTHOR) or 'Miss Seward' in QUOTATION AUTHOR. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 15 February 2010 )
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