Elizabeth I. Translations, 1544-1589

MUELLER, Janel et Joshua SCODEL (dir.), Elizabeth I. Translations, 1544-1589, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2009, 504 p.

ISBN 9780226201313

RÉSUMÉ

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.

TABLE DES MATIÈRES

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

BIOGRAPHIE

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.