Tom Cable ’64: A History of the English Language

November 25, 2023

Classmates:

In print through four editions over 45 years. Tom Cable’s A History of the English Language, co-authored with Albert C. Baugh, has been standard fare for undergrads and graduate students since 1978. Now Tom will bring this textbook to life in our January 25, 2024, Class of 1964 Authors Book Club. He will discuss why he finds English so fascinating, as a linguistic historian and as an internationally recognized scholar of prosody — the sound and rhythm of poetry.

Registration for this Zoom event will be required. All spouses are invited and welcome to attend with or without classmates. Register now for the meeting by clicking the following link:

Register by clicking here, and mark your calendar.

You will receive a confirmation email with a link to the meeting. That link will be unique to you. On the morning of the event you will receive the meeting link again. You will not have to hunt for it.

The large audience and use of  A History of the English Language pose requirements, but Tom  loves to spend his time doing detective work that reveals something about the prosody of poetry in the eighth century, or the fourteenth. He and the medieval musician Benjamin Bagby put together a chanted performance of Beowulf in the original Old English, based on Tom’s first book, The Meter and Melody of Beowulf. Bagby has performed it all over the world, including several seasons at Lincoln Center in NYC.

In 2011 Tom retired from the University of Texas at Austin as the Jane Weinert Blumberg Chair Emeritus in English.

Herb Cook, the moderator, and Tom were four-year roommates in Wright Hall and Calhoun College. Herb, a retired journalist and publisher, lives with his wife Kathe on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, a short ferry ride from Tom and Carole's home on Whidbey Island. 

The ’64 Book Club requires no one to have read the book before attending, but if you are interested, you may buy Tom’s book on Amazon here and Bagby’s DVD, Beowulf, here.

I hope to see you at the ‘64 Book Club. Don't forget to register.

Cheers,