Introduction

Like any period in the history of English there are certain recurrent themes to be found in the eighteenth century. Some of these have become standard wisdoms and are widespread among scholars and students alike. Other topics have not been in the forefront to the same extent but increasingly the focus of researchers has been directed towards them too. Among these matters can be counted the large body of grammars by female writers (Navest, Percy, Tieken-Boon van Ostade [1], this volume) and the role of discourse communities within eighteenth-century English society (Fitzmaurice, this volume).

The most prevalent standard wisdom about the eighteenth century is that it is the period in which prescriptivism in English established itself. Like all such wisdoms it is largely true but the details of both the nature of prescriptivism and the manner in which it arose have been shown not to correspond to the somewhat two-dimensional view which is often found, especially the view of the author who is seen as the arch-prescriptivist, Robert Lowth (Tieken-Boon van Ostade [2], this volume).

Another common view of the eighteenth century is that it is the period in which codes of politeness (Nevalainen and Tissari; Taavitsainen and Jucker, both this volume) became fixed and mandatory for the established classes in English society, and for those who aspired to belong to these. Again this is no doubt true and rules of etiquette were evidently rigid and compulsory.