Travel and Translation in the Early Modern Period (Approaches to Translation Studies 26) (Approaches to Translation Studies)

291 Pages·2006·0.93 MB·English

by  Carmine G. Di Biase

Travel and Translation
in the
Early Modern Period
APPROACHES TO TRANSLATION STUDIES
Founded by James S. Holmes
Edited by Henri Bloemen
Dirk Delabastita
Ton Naaijkens
Volume 26
Travel and Translation
in the
Early Modern Period

Edited by
Carmine G. Di Biase
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006
Cover design: Studio Pollmann
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 90-420-1768-6
©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam – New York, NY 2006
Printed in The Netherlands
alla memoria di
Luigi Monga
(1941-2004)
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Contents
Introduction: The Example of the Early Modern Lexicographer
Carmine G. Di Biase 9
Section 1: Towards the Vernacular
1.1. “If there is a hell, then Rome stands upon it”: Martin
Luther as Traveler and Translator
Russel Lemmons 33
1.2. Fertile Ground: Erasmus’s Travels in England
Erika Rummel 45
1.3. Across the Alps–an English Poet Addresses an Italian in
Latin: John Milton in Naples
Stella P. Revard 53
1.4. Milton Translating Petrarch: Paradise Lost VIII and the
Secretum
Anthony M. Cinquemani 65
Section 2: The English in Italy and Spain
2.1. Writing and Lying: William Thomas and the Politics of
Translation
Joseph Khoury 91
2.2. John Frampton of Bristol, Trader and Translator
Donald Beecher 103
2.3. Thomas Hoby, Translator, Traveler
Kenneth R. Bartlett 123
2.4. “A poore preasant off Ytalyan costume”: The Interplay of
Travel and Translation in William Barker’s Dyssputacion
off the Nobylytye off Wymen
Brenda M. Hosington 143
Section 3: The European as Other and the Other in Europe
3.1. The Pilgrimage of Konrad Grünemberg to the Holy Land
in 1486
Kristiaan Aercke 159
3.2. Leo Africanus and the Limits of Translation
Oumelbanine Zhiri 175
3.3. From Incan Realm to the Italian Renaissance: Garcilaso el
Inca and his Translation of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi
d’Amore
James Nelson Novoa 187
3.4. The Translator Translated: Inca Garcilaso and English
Imperial Expansion
María Antonia Garcés 203
Section 4: Towards Art and Parody
4.1. Early Anglo-American Attitudes to Native American
Languages
Randall C. Davis 229
4.2. “Where the devil should he learn our language?”–Travel
and Translation in Shakespeare’s The Tempest
Jack D’Amico 239
4.3. Tamburlaine: the Migration and Translation of Marlowe’s
Arabic Sources
Howard Miller 255
4.4. Travel and Pseudo-Translation in the Self-Promotional
Writings of John Taylor, Water Poet
Joanne E. Gates 267
Index 281
Introduction: The Example of the Early Modern
Lexicographer
Carmine G. Di Biase
This collection of essays explores the various relationships between travel and translation during
the early modern period, when both activities flourished. The many facets of this relationship are
at times obvious, at other times elusive; its manifestations can be seen in the works of Martin
Luther and Erasmus, of Petrarch and Shakespeare, and of lesser known writers such as Leo
Africanus and Garcilaso de la Vega, who are among the subjects of these essays. It seems to me,
however, and perhaps James Joyce would have agreed, that all of these writers have at least one
thing in common: they were exiles. Such too were the early makers of bilingual dictionaries, who
found themselves between worlds. In the lives and works of these lexicographers, in particular
Michelangelo Florio and his illustrious son John, one can see that the act of translation is
essentially like that of travel: both involve a certain moment of failure, and that moment, in both
cases, leads directly to the creation of something new. In short, linguistic translation and its strange
results may serve as an observable, illustrative instance of how travel generates culture.
Keywords: bilingual lexicographers, exile, Florio, identity, translation, travel.
What exactly is the relationship between travel and translation? Some answers
suggest themselves readily. The traveler must translate in order to make sense
of foreign places and foreign people. On the other hand, a knowledge of
languages other than one’s own might make one want to travel in order to put
those languages to use in their native settings. And if what is meant by
translation is the relocation of a message from one language to another, then is
not all travel–the relocation of a person from one place to another–also a kind
of translation? When such obvious answers left a group of scholars unsatisfied,
they decided to look deeper into the matter. To study the relationship between
these two human compulsions, however, is to enter into territory that is only
now beginning to be charted. Michael Cronin has studied this relationship as
it pertains to the work of modern and contemporary writers; a few other
scholars, such as Loredana Polezzi and Mirella Agorni, have carried out more
specialized studies. But the early modern period, during which both travel and
translation enjoyed a spectacular flourishing, has not, until the appearance of
this book, attracted an extended study. The goal of this book, then, is to
examine how this relationship manifests itself in the works of early modern
writers and thereby to continue closing the gap between the study of translation
and the study of travel, or hodoeporics, the term coined recently by the late
Luigi Monga (1996: 5), to whom this book is dedicated. True to the spirit of the
form, the essays contained herein are investigations, experiments in inductive
reasoning. They do not pretend to be conclusive, only to begin a dialogue that
one hopes will continue for years to come. Nor do they pretend to be
comprehensive in their coverage; the emphasis, with several exceptions, is on