Hosington, Brenda M. (Author)
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.
...MoreDescription Lead Article in a Series
Article Wilkinson, Alexander S. (2015) Vernacular Translation in Renaissance France, Spain, Portugal and Britain: A Comparative Survey. Renaissance Studies (pp. 19-35).
Article Cazes, Hélène (2015) Translation as Editorial Mediation: Charles Estienne's Experiments with the Dissemination of Knowledge. Renaissance Studies (pp. 36-54).
Article Merisalo, Outi (2015) Translating the Classics into the Vernacular in Sixteenth-Century Italy. Renaissance Studies (pp. 55-77).
Article Armstrong, Guyda (2015) Coding Continental: Information Design in Sixteenth-Century English Vernacular Language Manuals and Translations. Renaissance Studies (pp. 78-102).
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).
Article Hermans, Theo (2015) Miracles in Translation: Lipsius, Our Lady of Halle and Two Dutch Translations. Renaissance Studies (pp. 125-142).
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).
Article Green, Jonathan (2015) Translating Time: Chronicle, Prognostication, Prophecy. Renaissance Studies (pp. 162-177).
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