Sade et le Zen by Norbert Sclippa (review)

Abstract

familiar and the strange, never fully inhabiting one linguistic category or another, and the affective bond between readers and Moll destig\xad matizes her “low” speech. Moll Flanders becomes more than simply a representation of period dialect: cant enhances Defoe’s realism, while the unique capacities of the novel as a genre contribute to the growing perception among eighteenth-century readers of Englishes, multiple and varied, rather than a single standard. In all of these ways, Strange Vernaculars makes an important con\xad tribution to our understanding of English in the eighteenth century, which is no small feat considering the number of books previously written on that topic, including one by Sorensen herself. As I have attempted to outline, this book has implications that transcend the history of linguistic standardization, and as such it will appeal to scholars working on a range of eighteenth-century topics, from the evolution of the novel, to the relationship between print and orality, to emerging notions of British national identity.