Articles, Book Chapters by Brenda M Hosington
Eary Modern Englishwomen Writing in English , 2022
Taken from Bathsua Makin's 1673 pamphlet, An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen... more Taken from Bathsua Makin's 1673 pamphlet, An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen, the phrase 'mistresses of tongues' punningly alludes to women's indisputable linguistic abilities but also to the age-old proverbial slur, 'one tongue is enough for a woman'. Actually, Makin continues, 'Women have not been mere talkers (as some frivolous men would make them), but they have known how to use languages when they have had them' (sig. B2r). One way was to put their foreign language learning into multilingual practice through communicating translingually, sometimes orally, as recently discussed in Emilie Murphy's excellent article on language use and proficiency in English convents on the Continent. 1 Often, however, women could demonstrate their linguistic skills through translation. They and their translated texts are the subject of this chapter.
Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2002
Our chapter identifies challenges and obstacles to studying mediated translations in the early mo... more Our chapter identifies challenges and obstacles to studying mediated translations in the early modern period. It reflects on the main issues involved and some proposed means to address them. It also offers some prospects for research into the multiple textual, linguistic and material mediations found in early modern translation. Lastly, it calls for interdisciplinary collaboration in furthering reserach in mediated translation.
Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2022
Virtually all Translation Studies specialists writing on indirect or mediated translations, a sub... more Virtually all Translation Studies specialists writing on indirect or mediated translations, a subject of increasing interest over the past few years, do so in the context of far later periods than the one proposed in this special FMLS Talking Points discussion by specialists of early modern translation. This essay argues that an exchange of views between these two groups of researchers would benefit both and proposes, in dialogue mode, that it cover six central questions: the problem of identifying indirect translations, the role of languages, the matter of text-types, the binary practice of overt versus covert indirect translating, the value of paratexts, and the effect of indirect translation on the receiving culture.
Dulces ante omnia Musae. Essays on Neo-Latin Poetry in Honour of Dirk Sacré, 2021
Elizabeth Jane Weston, an Englishwoman living in Prague from roughly 1588 until her death in 161... more Elizabeth Jane Weston, an Englishwoman living in Prague from roughly 1588 until her death in 1612, was known throughout the Neo-Latin republic of letters as a precocious poet of great talent and corresponded with some of the major poets and humanists of her day. The first edition of her poems was published in 1602 entitled Poëmata Elisab. Ioan. Westoniae, Anglae. A second enlarged edition, with letters by and to her and works praising her, appeared in 1608 as Parthenicôn... Libri III. Several other poems were published independently.
While Weston’s religious verse constitutes a small part of her poetic output, a total of twelve poems, it represents various genres (epigrams, meditative verse, occasional poems). It also demonstrates a range of techniques and a familiarity with the conventions of Neo-Latin religious poetry and the sentiments expressed in much Counter-Reformation verse. Moreover, allusions to God and her faith appear in many other poems. This essay focusses on discussing the specifically religious poems but also takes into consideration some of Weston’s other expressions of faith and, to paraphrase her adopted motto, her 'hope in Christ'.
English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500-`625, 2011
This article provides the first detailed discussion of Lady Margaret Beaufort's 'The Forthe boke ... more This article provides the first detailed discussion of Lady Margaret Beaufort's 'The Forthe boke of the folowynge of Jesu cryst' and 'The mirroure of golde for the synfull soule', two English translations from French versions of Latin works. While neither translation has any paratextual commentary, a comparison of source and target texts reveals clear translating principles and strategies (for example, explicitation, personalization, intensification). These serve to clarify the source texts and encourage lay people to prepare for the Eucharist. As such, they reflect Beaufort's desire to disseminate devotional works intended for clerical readers among a wider, literate, but lay readership.
Gender, Authorship, and Early Modern Women's Collaboration, 2017
Translation is in its very essence collaborative, concerning author and translator, source and ta... more Translation is in its very essence collaborative, concerning author and translator, source and target texts, language and culture, sender and receiver. This is perfectly illustrated by the paratextual materials accompanying both Susan Du Verger's translations of Jean-Pierre Camus's 'Les Euenements singulers', 'Les Relations morales' and 'Diotrephe. Histoire Valentine' and Judith Man's translation of Nicolas Coëffeteau's 'Histoire de Poliarque et d'Argenis'. This metadiscourse provides space in which to demonstrate how collaboration is achieved between the various agents involved, how it can create a context that prepares the reader for the text that follows, and how it can facilitate the discussion of various issues such as the interplay between author and translator, the subsequent meshing of their roles, the self-positioning and resulting visibility of the female translator in the male world of print, and the ways in which social and ideological factors influence or determine the choice of translating strategies. Both Du Verger and Man successfully exploit their paratextual
opportunities and in order to do so employ various rhetorical conventions.
Among these are authorizing strategies enabling them to participate in an otherwise male-dominated discursive field and authorial strategies that challenge the traditional dichotomy between author and translator. Thus they transform separation into collaboration.
Thresholds of Translation. Paratexts, Print, and Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Britain (`473-1660), 2018
Presenting 11 essays on the liminal materials in printed translations published in early modern B... more Presenting 11 essays on the liminal materials in printed translations published in early modern Britain, the Introduction lays the ground for discussions of the textual, material, and cultural transfer that takes place in early modern translated books and is illustrated by the paratexts accompanying them: marginalia, portraits of translators, titles, peritexts and various types of prefatorial materials.
Thresholds of Translation: Paratexts, Print, and Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Britain, 2018
The roles of titles in early modern books are varied, being both designative and commercial. Tran... more The roles of titles in early modern books are varied, being both designative and commercial. Translated titles, however, have two further dimensions, linguistic and cultural, that have to be taken into account when a work leaves one socio-cultural context for a new one, is aimed at a new readership, and is created through the agency of a new writer and printer. This essay examines the ways in which a number of translators and three important English printers, Richard Pynson, John Wolfe and Thomas Harper, presented a corpus of translated texts to their readerships, sometimes with similar titles but for the most part with very different ones.
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, 2019
The essay studies three texts related to the 'querelle des femmes' translated by Anthony Munday: ... more The essay studies three texts related to the 'querelle des femmes' translated by Anthony Munday: several essays in Charles Estienne's 'Paradoxes'; Alexandre de Pontaymeri's 'Paradoxe apologique'; Leon Battista Alberti's ' Ecatomphila che ne insegna l'inegiosa arte d'Amore'. These texts underwent 'transformission' in Munday's hands, as seen in the material aspects of the translations as will as the linguistic ones.
Syntagmatia. Essays on Neo-Latin Literature in honour of Monique Mund-Dopchie and Gilbert OurnoyHOnour , 2009
This essay studies the thirteen Latin and English translations of various of Lucian's texts that ... more This essay studies the thirteen Latin and English translations of various of Lucian's texts that were published in England between 1506 and 1656. It focuses on whether these translations display the same ambivalent attitudes towards Lucian that existed elsewhere in Europe.
Tudor Translation. Edited by Fred Schurink., 2011
Translation is seen in this essay as an ideological construct, a rewriting emanating from a new a... more Translation is seen in this essay as an ideological construct, a rewriting emanating from a new and different socio-cultural context and influenced by various forces such as gender, patronage, the marketplace, religion, and so on. The result is often a manipulated version suiting the translator's beliefs, place in time and space, and goals. This is most certainly true concerning the women translators in Tudor England, who were far from being passive and overly modest, as some critics have claimed.
Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Upsaliensis, 2012
This essay demonstrates how early modern English women writers of Latin verse were as able as the... more This essay demonstrates how early modern English women writers of Latin verse were as able as their male counterparts to handle Neo-Latin genres such as encomium, eulogy, panegyric, epitaph, epicedium and elegy. In other words, the poetry of praise and lament which they seem to have particularly favoured.
Learned Letter Writers Navigating the Reefs of Religious and Political Controversy in Early Modern Europe, 2010
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature / Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée, 2014
The concept of cultural translation has been applied to many fields but it is particularly releva... more The concept of cultural translation has been applied to many fields but it is particularly relevant to translations of histories, as Peter Burke contends. The nature and role of the paratextual materials accompanying those translations are also very significant.This article examines a large corpus of Neo-Latin histories and their paratexts in order to test Burke's thesis that history translating in the period favours cultural translation methods.
Humanistica Lovaniensia. Journal of Neo Latin Studies, 2009
After an overview of recent and not so recent discussions of the role of the Classics in early mo... more After an overview of recent and not so recent discussions of the role of the Classics in early modern women's education, and particularly the teaching of the Latin language, this article presents an examination of Latin writings (verse, prose, translation) by early modern Englishwomen in order to demonstrate the extent and variety of Latin works of all genres penned by Renaissance Englishwomen. The poetry, prose, and translations that over twenty Englishwomen - queens, aristocrats, members of the courtier and gentry classes, daughters of both high placed and modest scholars, and one the daughter of a tradesman - echo across the centuries thanks to the voices of learned women so often addressed by learned men as Minerva and the Muses.
Renaissance Cultural Crossroads. Translation, Print and Culture in Britain, 1473-1640., 2000
This article discusses the importance of translation in the incunabular years of the English prin... more This article discusses the importance of translation in the incunabular years of the English print trade, correcting and bringing up to date H. S. Bennet's 1969 list with a new chronological one of 114 works. The range and type of translated texts is also discussed.
Renaissance Quarterly, 2003
Oxford History of Literary Translation Volume 2 1550-1660, 2010
We read frequently in writings of the 1550-166-period how people avidly sought books, not only wr... more We read frequently in writings of the 1550-166-period how people avidly sought books, not only written in English, but also translated from a variety of languages both ancient and modern. We read less often, however, about how those translated works came into being. Moreover, despite immense strides in our knowledge of early printing, relatively little attention has been paid to the practice and role of translation in the print culture of the period. How did translators and printers choose which texts to translate? Were they responding to specific market demands or were they more proactive, shaping opinions and taste by making certain texts accessible to the multitude? What exactly was the relationship between translator and printer? How were translators remunerated, and, beyond the commercial level, how did they engage with the complex question of patronage? These are some of the principal questions with which this section deals.
Florilegium, 2006
An assessment of the importance of translation in the development of the 'querelle des femmes' in... more An assessment of the importance of translation in the development of the 'querelle des femmes' in early modern England.
Renaissance Studies. Special Issue: Translation and Print Culture in Early Modern Europe., 2015
The crucial links between translation and print culture in early modern Europe have not been suff... more The crucial links between translation and print culture in early modern Europe have not been sufficiently recognised. Yet the two are intertwined in various ways in the dissemination of knowledge and the exchange of cultural and religious values. The so-called 'cultural turn' in translation studies and in book history have made the study of the links between and the inter-dependence of these two fields indispensable if we are to understand how translators and printers reached out beyond national, linguistic, cultural and social confines in bringing new works to new readerships.
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Articles, Book Chapters by Brenda M Hosington
While Weston’s religious verse constitutes a small part of her poetic output, a total of twelve poems, it represents various genres (epigrams, meditative verse, occasional poems). It also demonstrates a range of techniques and a familiarity with the conventions of Neo-Latin religious poetry and the sentiments expressed in much Counter-Reformation verse. Moreover, allusions to God and her faith appear in many other poems. This essay focusses on discussing the specifically religious poems but also takes into consideration some of Weston’s other expressions of faith and, to paraphrase her adopted motto, her 'hope in Christ'.
opportunities and in order to do so employ various rhetorical conventions.
Among these are authorizing strategies enabling them to participate in an otherwise male-dominated discursive field and authorial strategies that challenge the traditional dichotomy between author and translator. Thus they transform separation into collaboration.
While Weston’s religious verse constitutes a small part of her poetic output, a total of twelve poems, it represents various genres (epigrams, meditative verse, occasional poems). It also demonstrates a range of techniques and a familiarity with the conventions of Neo-Latin religious poetry and the sentiments expressed in much Counter-Reformation verse. Moreover, allusions to God and her faith appear in many other poems. This essay focusses on discussing the specifically religious poems but also takes into consideration some of Weston’s other expressions of faith and, to paraphrase her adopted motto, her 'hope in Christ'.
opportunities and in order to do so employ various rhetorical conventions.
Among these are authorizing strategies enabling them to participate in an otherwise male-dominated discursive field and authorial strategies that challenge the traditional dichotomy between author and translator. Thus they transform separation into collaboration.