Introduction

The term literary language can be used in various senses, reflecting the different meanings of the word literature, and the area of discourse usefully designated by it will vary from one period to another. For the period up to 1100 there is little value in applying the broad and etymological sense of the word ‘literary’ or ‘literature’, meaning ‘all that is written down’ in contradistinction to oral discourse: to do so risks, on the one hand, excluding poetry, since the special language of verse was largely developed without benefit of writing and a number of the surviving poems probably originated in oral conditions; and on the other hand, including too much to be useful, since virtually all our evidence for the language of the time, at all levels, comes from written documents. At the other extreme, a more restricted definition of literature as imaginative composition would be in danger of excluding much that is worth attention and including some texts of little linguistic or literary interest because they happen to deal with imaginary fictions. I use the term ‘literary language’ here to cover the language of all verse and of the more sustained and ambitious writing in prose, especially those texts which reveal a concern with the selection and use of language.