Language, custom, and nation in the 1790s : Locke, Tooke, Wordsworth, Edgeworth

Introduction; John Horne Tooke and Linguistic Equality: Introduction; Tooke, Locke and 'plain sense'; Locke, communication and community; Appropriating Locke in the 18th century: Burke, Bentham, Jones; Misappropriating Locke: Harris, Monboddo, and plain sense; Tooke and radical etymology: reclaiming Locke. Custom and Common Language: The Debate in the 1790s and its Sources: Introduction; Popular antiquarianism and reform; Linguistic custom and legislative grammarians; The usurpation of common use rights; Law and language in crisis: the 1790s; Thelwall, 'aggregate reason' and oral eloquence; Towards the 'real language of men'? Wordsworth and Common Cultivation: Language, Property, and Nature: Introduction; 'Commonness' in the Lyrical Ballads (1798); Wordsworth's poetics of paradox and the regulation and control of 'the people'; Presence and loss of the visible; 'Men in cities' and the challenge to property; The properties of nature. Maria Edgeworth and 'The Genius of the People': Introduction; 'Things called by their right names'; The Edgeworths, Irish politics, and 'savage policy'; Constituting Ireland: the Essay on Irish Bulls (1802); 'The criminal law of bulls and blunders'; 'Little Dominick', authority and independence; 'Ossian monuments of native speech' or the 'thoughts that breathe'; Conclusion: Edgeworth's 'historic doubts'. Afterword; Works cited; Index.