Which text is representative of Early Modern English?

• A. The Canterbury Tales
• B. Beowulf
• C. Shakespeare
• D. The King James Bible

Answer: (C)

Early Modern English is the period when the language begins to resemble modern English more closely: spelling and grammar become more standardized, a flood of new words enters from Renaissance sources, and writers experiment with form and expression. Shakespeare’s works are a quintessential example of that shift. His writing shows a language expanding in vocabulary and flexibility, with more varied sentence structures and the ability to coin new terms and phrases that later became part of everyday English. It captures how people spoke and wrote across different social contexts during the era, rather than adhering to older, more inflected forms.

The other texts come from earlier stages. Canterbury Tales is Middle English, with vocabulary and grammar that differ significantly from modern usage. Beowulf is Old English, whose features are largely unfamiliar to us today. The King James Bible, while also Early Modern, is a translation and preserves more archaic spellings and phrasing, not as representative of the living literary language of the period as Shakespeare’s writing.