'The Way to Things by Words': John Cleland, the Name of the Father, and Speculative Etymology
1998; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 28; Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3508768
ISSN2222-4289
Autores Tópico(s)Lexicography and Language Studies
Resumotreatment of a subject to which he devoted so much ingenuity and passion, in The Way to Things by Words, and by Words to Things (1766), Specimen of an Etimological Vocabulary; or, Essay, by Means of the Analitic MAethod, to Retrieve the Antient Celtic (1768), and Additional Articles to the Specimen of an Etimological Vocabulary (I769). His drive to reconstruct 'Antient Celtic' language and society was not a unique obsession: for Patrice Bergheaud, it is part of the 'celtomanie' which flourished between I760 and 1780, and which he situates 'dans le mouvement complexe de renaissance gothique qui [...] rivalise avec la reference majeure du siecle, l'Antiquite latine'.1 Cleland, however, has seldom been brought into relationship with other eighteenth-century etymologists; Stuart Piggott typically remarks, 'It may be thought surprising to find the author of Fanny Hill in such company.'2 There has also been enduring reluctance to connect Cleland's etymological work with his erotic fiction. John Nichols ( 7451826) politely mentions Cleland's 'curious tracts on the Celtic language' in his obituary, but dismisses Fanny's Memoirs (1748-49) as a work 'too infamous to be particularised', which 'tarnished his reputation as an author': the deceased's respectability is his top priority.3 Peter Sabor, who has different priorities, regrets that institutionalized prudery should force 'the author of the most celebrated erotic novel in English' to 'dwindle away into an undistinguished writer of miscellaneous novels, dramas, verse, journalism, and semi-learned works.'4 Yet Cleland's etymological speculations open up fascinating perspectives on his other
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