MUALLIM | УЧИТЕЛЬ | TEACHER
№4 | 2021
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The element of an interaction between people and the mutual dependence of their state is also
indicated:
Whan she is mery pan am y gladde [The Canterbury Tales, p.171]
Gladness is a noun, derivative word which is formed from glad adjective and -nes suffix. Word
formation process happened by means of adding -ess affix to the word stem glad noun was formed
from adjective. It used together with joy, comfort, felicity. It also often refers to the looks of the
person and collocates with chere ‘face’ or eyes, it usually meant ‘bright’.
The noun appears in phrases “Joy” when the element of connection of emotions also shown: whan
sche glaeth-he is glad Gladness also expressed through jumping and dancing:
1)
Whan I mai hire ha beclippe, With such glanesse I daunce and skippe, Me thenkth I touché
noght the flor [Confessio Amantis,p.4]
It is used to name mood or behavior and for emotion in the strict sense
2)
A man that is joyous and glad in herte, it hym conserueth floriss hynge in his age (Confessio
Amantis, p.4)
Another forms of glad such as gleadung, gladschipe became archaic in Modern English
Mirth(mirthen)- is a noun, used with joy, glee, pleasance, game, goodness, bliss, comfort. It is
appeared in verb phrases: find, have, live, get, make – Get mirth, finding mirthe, to have mirth, live
in mirth, do mirth to somebody. Main cause mirth is in sex - make mirth-means to have sex. The
word usually expressed through singing and entertainment
1)
Lordes…gentlemen… and other Comyners have used the occupation of shotyng for their
myrthes a sportes [The Canterbury Tales, p.156]
2)
Alle maner of merth and mynstralcy [The Canterbury Tales, p.45]
Mirth also used for describing beauty of nature, especially land:
3)
Per wes al pa murhde pe aei mon mihte of penche [The Canterbury Tales,p.91]
Mirth appeared while epithet for God:
4)
Ihesu-myrth of herte
GAINESSE (GAY)
Gaines is not attested, and the adjectival form gay has been investigated instead. It appears in
Confessio Amantis, Romaunt of the Rose, Troilus and Criseyde and The Canterbury Tales. It is
predominantly used with reference to looks and clothes, where it means ‘well-dressed, elegant’. It
appears only 9 times with the meaning ‘merry, joyous’, and occurs in such phrases as lusty ‘merry’
and gay, gay and amorous, gay and full of gladness, fresh and gay and jolly and gay. This feeling
may arise from dancing or love and sexual intercourse. In fact, one of the senses of gay is ‘lewd,
promiscuous’, as in
1)
But in oure bed he was so fressh and gay [The Canterbury Tales,p.501]
In Caxton’s Prose gay is used 4 times, once to describe the looks of a woman and 3 times in
reference to rhetorically elegant phrases.
MED has an entry gaines with the senses
frivolity, merriment, pleasure; love of show and luxury;
brightness, showiness, beauty of appearance; also elegance of literary style
which suggest that the dead adjectival noun remained very close to the meaning of the adjective
from which it was formed.
LISSE
In ME is increasingly used in the sense of ‘relief or ‘remedy’. The sense of ‘joy’ has become
increasingly rare. According to MED it is used in the following verb phrases:
live in/on lisse; send lisse to sb; have lisse.
It co-occurs with related words such as bliss, rest, joy, love and contrasts with pain and woe. The
link between the two main senses goes along the following lines: pain - relief = lack of pain-
comfort, peace - joy. If this hypothesis is correct it would illustrate one of the possible
conceptualizations of ‘joy’, i.e. as lack of suffering. OED suggests that lisse in the sense of ‘joy’ has
become obsolete by late Middle English.
WYNN
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