Name: Elizabeth I: Translations, 1544-1589
Author: Scodel
ISBN: 9780226201313

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Elizabeth I: Translations, 1544-1589

by Elizabeth I
edited by Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel

University of Chicago Press, 2008
Cloth: 978-0-226-20131-3 | eISBN: 978-0-226-20133-7
Library of Congress Classification DA350.A25 2009
Dewey Decimal Classification 870

ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

ABOUT THIS BOOK

England’s Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Tudor, had a reputation for proficiency in foreign languages, repeatedly demonstrated in multilingual exchanges with foreign emissaries at court and in the extemporized Latin she spoke on formal visits to Cambridge and Oxford. But the supreme proof of her mastery of other tongues is the sizable body of translations she made over the course of her lifetime. This two-volume set is the first complete collection of Elizabeth’s translations from and into Latin, French, and Italian.

Presenting original and modernized spellings in a facing-page format, these two volumes will answer the call to make all of Elizabeth’s writings available. They include her renderings of epistles of Cicero and Seneca, religious writings of John Calvin and Marguerite de Navarre, and Horace’s Ars poetica, as well as Elizabeth’s Latin Sententiae drawn from diverse sources, on the responsibilities of sovereign rule and her own perspectives on the monarchy. Editors Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel offer introduction to each of the translated selections, describing the source text, its cultural significance, and the historical context in which Elizabeth translated it. Their annotations identify obscure meanings, biblical and classical references, and Elizabeth’s actual or apparent deviations from her sources.

The translations collected here trace Elizabeth’s steady progression from youthful evangelical piety to more mature reflections on morality, royal responsibility, public and private forms of grief, and the right way to rule. Elizabeth I: Translations is the queen’s personal legacy, an example of the very best that a humanist education can bring to the conduct of sovereign rule.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Janel Mueller is the William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in the Department of English and the College at the University of Chicago. She is a coeditor of Elizabeth I: Collected Works and Elizabeth I: Autograph Compositions and Foreign Language Originals, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Joshua Scodel is Helen A. Regenstein Professor in English, Comparative Literature, and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Excess and the Mean in Early Modern English Literature.

REVIEWS

“These volumes are a mine of interesting materials for Elizabethan scholars, and will probably contribute to redeem some of Elizabeth’s ‘minor’ poetical works (the meters from De consolatione and her rendering of Plutarch) from neglect. Readers are presented with some original discoveries, such as the fact that Elizabeth used Erasmus's Latin version of Plutarch as her source text, and with very informative (but never obtrusive) footnotes throughout more than a thousand pages of text. . . . Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel provide here a series of documents which will allow readers to acquire an unique insight into Elizabeth’s formative years.”

— Carlo M. Bajetta, Times Literary Supplement

“Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel are to be applauded for making a genuinely new contribution to the field, by rising to the considerable challenge of a comprehensive edition of Elizabeth’s translations. These two handsome volumes complete a set begun by the Collected Works of Elizabeth (edited by Mueller with Leah S. Marcus and Mary Beth Rose in 2000) and the accompanying volume of source materials, Autograph Compositions and Foreign Language Originals (which appeared from Mueller and Marcus in 2003). The four volumes together will not only grace any bookshelf, but will engender much fruitful discussion: not only of Elizabeth, who may now take her place as a significant and accomplished early modern author; but also of translation, as an important literary art of the period which we are perhaps still only beginning to take as seriously as we should.”

— Helen Hackett, Journal of the Northern Reniassance

“With the publication of these two volumes, University of Chicago Press has now made available in modern English all of the writings of England's Queen Elizabeth. . . . A detailed introduction accompanies each text, and the voluminous notes identify classical and biblical references and comment on Elizabeth's handling of her sources. The translations span Elizabeth's entire life, from age 11 to near the end of her reign. The subjects that she chose to translate, and the nuances of her translations, provide a remarkable window into the political, religious, and philosophical concerns of this fascinating monarch. These are invaluable texts for anyone interested in Elizabethan history or literature. . . . Highly recommended.”— Choice

"[These volumes] will not only grace any bookshelf, but will engender much fruitful discussion: not only of Elizabeth, who may now take her place as a significant and accomplished early modern author; but also of translation, as an important literary art of the period. . . . For Elizabeth, her translations were evidently a place where she not only honed her impressive linguistic and literary skills but also thought through political issues. . . . For us, this important publication will enable significant re-assessment of a Queen whom we thought we already knew so well."

— Helen Hackett, Journal of the Northern Renaissance

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
General Introduction

I          1544: Marguerite de Navarre’s Le Miroir de l’âme Pécheresse
            Introduction
            Translation

II         1545: Katherine Parr’s Prayers or Meditations
            Introduction
            Dedicatory Letter
            Latin Translation
            French Translation
            Italian Translation

III        1545: John Calvin’s Institution de la Religion Chrestienne, Chapter One
            Introduction
            Translation

IV        1547: Bernardino Ochino’s “Che Cosa è Christo”
            Introduction
            Elizabeth’s Latin Translation
            Editors’ English Translation

V         1563: Elizabeth’s Sententiae
            Introduction
            Sententiae

VI        Pre-1558–1580s: Elizabeth’s Book Inscriptions
            Introduction
            Inscriptions

VII       ca. 1567: Seneca’s Epistulae Morales 107
            Introduction
            Translation

VIII      ca. 1579: Cicero’s Epistulae ad Familiares 2.6
            Introduction
            Translation

IX        ca. 1589: Choral Ode from Hercules Oetaeus
            Introduction
            Translation

Appendix 1: Translation Ascribed to Elizabeth of Francesco Petrarch’s Trionfo dell’Eternità, Lines 1–90
            Introduction
            Translation

Appendix 2: The Reliability of Nugae Antiquae as a Source for Translations Ascribed to Elizabeth

Index of Names

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