 The Stuff of Which Names are Made: A Look at the Colorful and Eclectic Namecraft of Lord DunsanyChristopher L. Robinson
Post-Print from HAL Abstract: Lord Dunsany's prolific namecraft provides a rich field for study, but poses difficulties for traditional approaches to names in literature, which typically seek out the hidden meanings or symbolisms of isolated names. An alternative approach is to look for trends in the forms and substances of the author's inventions as a whole. To this end, Émile Souriau's threefold typology of neologisms proves useful. In the first category, Dunsany camouflages pre-existing vocables of diverse origins. In the second, he employs anglicized versions of forms identified with foreign languages and nomenclatures, though he does not introduce actual foreign sounds. In the third, he constructs names from morphological building blocks. Whether English or foreign, Dunsany divests his source materials of their original referents, yet retains traces of their idiomatic provenance. Colorful and eclectic, his inventions resonate within a mythopoetic encyclopedia of diverse literary, historical, and cultural traditions. Keywords: Lord; onomastics; linguistic invention; literary onomaturgy; names in fantasy and weird fiction; twentieth-century literature; Anglo-Irish literature (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in Names: A Journal of Onomastics, 2012, 60 (1), pp.26-35 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00715592 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Post-Print from HAL |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.