Article ID: CBB001550315

Translation and Print Culture in Early Modern Europe (2015)

unapi

Hosington, Brenda M. (Author)


Renaissance Studies
Volume: 29, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 5-18


Publication Date: 2015
Edition Details: Lead Article in a Series:
Language: English

Throughout history, and indeed throughout the world, translation has always been a means by which knowledge was transmitted and cultural and spiritual values were exchanged between communities. Western Europe, in particular, according to Louis Kelly, `owes its civilization to translators'.1 Henri van Hoof has pointed to the time-transcending nature of translation, to its multiple functions -- cultural, intellectual, ideological -- and to its varied purposes, such as creating or perfecting national languages, revealing an author or a work, or advancing science and technology; in short, he says, `elle fait partie intégrante de la vie intellectuelle de tout peuple civilisé' [it is an integral part of every civilized nation's intellectual life].2 Narrowing the focus, commentators have claimed that of all periods in Western history, the Renaissance was `the age of translations'. George Steiner credits Renaissance and Reformation translators with having `principally made up the chronology, the landscape of reference in which Western literacy developed', saying that in the two hundred years from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries, `the history of translation coincides with and informs that of Western thought and feeling.'3 Antoine Berman has spoken of the Renaissance as being a time of unbridled translation activities in innumerable and unlimited fields of intellectual pursuit and of constituting both the `origine et horizon' of writing in one's mother tongue, when for the first time in the West translating became `une activité manifeste et definie' [a visible and distinct activity].4 Matthiessen, in speaking specifically of England, even asserted that the Renaissance reached that country's shores thanks to translation.5 While such claims might appear to be over-egging the pudding, it remains that Renaissance translation was central to the dissemination of knowledge in a huge range of intellectual and practical endeavours and played a crucial role in enabling greater communication between peoples and advancing social and political movements beyond narrow national borders. What began as a means of studying and teaching Greek in Renaissance Italy, with scholar-translators like Manuel Chrysoloras, George de Trebizonde, Theodore Gaza and Demetrius Chalcocondylis, and early humanists like Leonardo Bruni, Lorenzo Valla, Guarino Veronese and Niccolò Perotti, to name but a few, would soon develop into a Europe-wide activity that became a major conduit of knowledge transfer, cultural cross fertilization, and religious, social and economic transformation.

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Description Lead Article in a Series


Includes Series Articles

Article Wilkinson, Alexander S. (2015) Vernacular Translation in Renaissance France, Spain, Portugal and Britain: A Comparative Survey. Renaissance Studies (pp. 19-35). unapi

Article Cazes, Hélène (2015) Translation as Editorial Mediation: Charles Estienne's Experiments with the Dissemination of Knowledge. Renaissance Studies (pp. 36-54). unapi

Article Merisalo, Outi (2015) Translating the Classics into the Vernacular in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Renaissance Studies (pp. 55-77). unapi

Article Armstrong, Guyda (2015) Coding Continental: Information Design in Sixteenth-Century English Vernacular Language Manuals and Translations. Renaissance Studies (pp. 78-102). unapi

Article Coldiron, A. E. B.; Coldiron, Anne E. B. (2015) Form[e]s of Transnationhood: The Case of John Wolfe's Trilingual Courtier. Renaissance Studies (pp. 103-124). unapi

Article Hermans, Theo (2015) Miracles in Translation: Lipsius, Our Lady of Halle and Two Dutch Translations. Renaissance Studies (pp. 125-142). unapi

Article Hame, Amélie (2015) Translating as a Way of Writing History: Father Du Creux's “Historiæ Canadensis and the Relations jésuites” of New France. Renaissance Studies (pp. 143-161). unapi

Article Green, Jonathan (2015) Translating Time: Chronicle, Prognostication, Prophecy. Renaissance Studies (pp. 162-177). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001550315/

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Authors & Contributors
Sarah Neville
Orr, Leah
John Yargo
Constantinidou, Natasha
Walsby, Malcolm
Hame, Amélie
Concepts
Printing
Printing industry
Printing press
Books
Publishers and publishing
Technology and culture
Time Periods
17th century
Early modern
16th century
19th century
18th century
Renaissance
Places
Europe
Great Britain
England
Italy
Utrecht (Netherlands)
Genoa (Italy)
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
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