Elizabeth I
Translations, 1592-1598
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.
MLA: MLA-Distinguished Scholarly Edition
Won
“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.”
“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.”
For acknowledgments and General Introduction, see Elizabeth I: Translations, 1544–1589.
I ca. 1592: Cicero’s Pro M. Marcello
Introduction
Translation
II 1593: Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae
Introduction
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
III 1598: Plutarch’s De curiositate (Desiderius Erasmus’s Latin version)
Introduction
Translation
IV 1598: Horace’s De arte poetica, Lines 1–178
Introduction
Translation
Index of Names
History: British and Irish History
Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature | Classical Languages | Romance Languages
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.
