1,910 research outputs found
Challenging the author: Gavin Douglas's Eneados
No full textGavin Douglas’s Eneados, a translation into the “Scottis” tongue of Virgil’s Aeneid, completed in 1513 and first published in London in 1553, presents, as well as the translation of the additional thirteenth book by Maphaeus Vegius, original prologues and marginal notes to the text, rubrics and articulate conclusive material. The present paper analyses this complex paratext as evidence of Douglas’s almost philological attention to the original and his preoccupation with a faithful reproduction; it is also suggested that the models for his organization of the commentary might be both medieval (i.e., manuscripts such as Petrarch’s Virgilius Ambrosianus) and early modern, as in the case of editions of classical works: the most apt example being Jodocus Badius Ascensius’ edition of the Aeneid, printed in 1501. The Eneados thus stands on the threshold between manuscript and print, and might have indicated new possibilities of use of the printing medium in Scotland, and of the value of the translation of a classical text, had history not intervened with the Scottish defeat at Flodden Fields in 1513, which put a temporary stop both to the circulation of the Eneados and to the development of Scottish printing
Introduction
No full textTranslation studies centring on medieval texts have prompted new ways to look at the texts themselves, but also at the exchange and transmission of culture in the European Middle Ages, inside and outside Europe. The present volume reflects, in the range and scope of its essays, the itinerant nature of the Medieval Translator Conference, at the same time inviting readers to reflect on the geography of medieval translation. By dividing the essays presented here into four groups, the volume highlights lines of communication and shifts in areas of interest, connecting the migrating nature of the translated texts to the cultural, political and linguistic factors underlying the translation process. Translation was, in each case under discussion, the result or the by-product of a transnational movement that prompted the circulation of ideas and texts within religious and/or political discussion and exchange.
Thus the volume opens with a group of contributions discussing the cultural exchange between Western Europe and the Middle East, identifying the pivotal role of Church councils, aristocratic courts, and monasteries in the production of translation. The following section concentrates on the literary exchanges between three close geographical and cultural areas, today identifiable with France, Italy and England, allowing us to re-think traditional hypotheses on sites of literary production, and to reflect on the triangulation of language and manuscript exchange. From this triangulation the book moves into a closer discussion of translations produced in England, showing in the variety and chronological span covered by the contributions the development of a rich cultural tradition in constant dialogue with Latin as well as contemporary vernaculars. The final essays offer a liminal view, considering texts translated into non-literary forms, or the role played by the onset of printing in the dissemination of translation, thus highlighting the continuity and closeness of medieval translation with the Renaissance
A View from Afar: Petruccio Ubaldini’s Descrittione del Regno di Scotia
No full textUbaldini’s Descrittione del Regno di Scotia, et delle Isole sue adjacenti, a translation and revision of Boece’s Chronicle of Scotland, dedicated to Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was published in 1588 in London by the enterprising printer John Wolfe who, as he had done on previous occasions, used a fictitious place of publication, indicating on the frontispiece Antwerp rather than the English capital.
This chapter investigates the Descrittione in view of its dedicatee and of the circumstances in which Ubaldini wrote it. Ubaldini was an Italian diplomat who had come to London in 1564, carrying letters from Cosimo I, Duke of Florence, to Arundel and William Paget, two Catholics at the English court, with the avowed intent, however, of working for the Protestant Tudor court. He visited Ireland (1579), the French court (1580) and the Low Countries (1586) as a diplomat, but there is no record of a visit to Scotland. An analysis of his Descrittione helps to throw light on Anglo-Scottish relations ‘under Italian eyes’, highlighting how Ubaldini exploits Boece’s material by giving it a new ideological slant, and turning it to use in his campaign to ingratiate himself with English political potentates
Introduction: Scottish Latinitas
No full textThe Introduction presents the book and explains its raison d’être by surveying the individual sections and their chapters, their inter-relations and the ways in which they respond to each other. It also brings out the central themes of the book by critiquing recent scholarship and highlighting common and distinctive strands emerging with added value from the individual contributions. There is also a descriptive account of the over-arching themes of the book and their articulation in three sections, as follows: Part I: Re-writing the classical and medieval legacy consists of exemplary instances of the re-writing of classical and medieval texts in Scotland, with particular attention being paid to the interest evinced by Scottish writers in the Troy legend. Part II: Writing the Scottish nation is about attempts to define the Scottish nation by both native and foreign writers. Part III: The vagaries of languages and texts is a sequence of case studies about how individual texts or manuscripts reached Scotland from abroad, and how they acquired further layers of meaning and significance in the processes of adaptation. Here, chronology is less important than the re-tracing of geographical and intellectual routes or the gradual rediscovery and redeployment of classical and/or of medieval Latin inheritances
Introduction: a Monarch in Writing
No full textThis section presents the book and offers its raison d’être through a survey of the individual chapters, underlining their relations and the way they respond to each other. It also draws on the overall theme of the book discussing recent criticism and highlighting the common themes and different strands emerging from the individual contributions in the volume
Medieval Harps and Their Kingly Players
No full textThis article explores the appearance of the harp and the relation between this instrument and its player, generally a king or an Orpheus-like figure, in medieval English and Scottish literature, from Beowulf to fifteenth-century Scottish poets such as Robert Henryson or the author of the Liber Pluscardensis. Reference is made to the symbology of the harp in early Christian theology, as well as to its role in medieval theories of politics and good government
Walter Scott of Buccleuch, Italian Poet?
No full textThis article examines a small corpus of Italian poems appearing in the manuscript collection known as Hawthornden Manuscripts (National Library of Scotland) and identifies the hand as belonging to Walter Scott of Buccleuch, friend and protector of William Fowler, who is the author of a substantial group of writings in the same mss
The Medieval Translator – Traduire au Moyen Age. In principio fuit interpres
No full textTranslation studies centring on medieval texts have prompted new ways to look at the texts themselves, but also at the exchange and transmission of culture in the European Middle Ages, inside and outside Europe. The present volume reflects, in the range and scope of its essays, the itinerant nature of the Medieval Translator Conference, at the same time inviting readers to reflect on the geography of medieval translation. By dividing the essays presented here into four groups, the volume highlights lines of communication and shifts in areas of interest, connecting the migrating nature of the translated texts to the cultural, political and linguistic factors underlying the translation process. Translation was, in each case under discussion, the result or the by-product of a transnational movement that prompted the circulation of ideas and texts within religious and/or political discussion and exchange.
Thus the volume opens with a group of contributions discussing the cultural exchange between Western Europe and the Middle East, identifying the pivotal role of Church councils, aristocratic courts, and monasteries in the production of translation. The following section concentrates on the literary exchanges between three close geographical and cultural areas, today identifiable with France, Italy and England, allowing us to re-think traditional hypotheses on sites of literary production, and to reflect on the triangulation of language and manuscript exchange. From this triangulation the book moves into a closer discussion of translations produced in England, showing in the variety and chronological span covered by the contributions the development of a rich cultural tradition in constant dialogue with Latin as well as contemporary vernaculars. The final essays offer a liminal view, considering texts translated into non-literary forms, or the role played by the onset of printing in the dissemination of translation, thus highlighting the continuity and closeness of medieval translation with the Renaissance
Queen and Country: The Relation between the Monarch and the People in the Development of the English Nation
No full textFocussing on the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, this collection of essays investigates the relation between the Queen and her subjects, which shapes contemporary and future politics and is actively crucial in the debate upon the divine right of kings. The book explores the ways in which political power, intensely aware of the possibilities of literature, encourages, ostracizes or manipulates the production of writing. Through the act of writing, the Queen and her country communicate: the moulding of this act of communication is no minor task for the Queen, no minor privilege for her country. The book investigates the Queen’s own writings, with part- icular attention to her poems and the speeches to the nation; the pro- duction of literary culture during her reign, including the presence of oppositional voices; and the treatment of her image and memory, as well as her political legacy, during the reign of James I and Charles I
Review of Aileen A. Feng, Writing Beloveds: Humanist Petrarchism and the Politics of Gender
No full textThis is a review of Aileen A. Fen's book Writing Beloveds: Humanist Petrarchism and the Politics of Gender
- …
