Translating Petrarch in early modern Britain

Canzoniere and Triumphi, c. 1530–1650

Marie-Alice Belle, Riccardo Raimondo, Francesco Venturi

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781526173034
• eBook ISBN: 9781526173027
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Translating Petrarch in early modern Britain gathers twelve essays by international scholars focusing on the translation of Petrarch's vernacular verse ( Canzoniere and Triumphi ) into English, from the Tudor age to the mid-seventeenth century (and beyond). Approaching translation as an interpretive process, but also a mode of literary emulation and cultural engagement with Petrarch's prestigious precedent, the collection explores the complex and interconnected trajectories of both poetic works in English and Scottish literary milieux. While situating each translation in its distinct historical, material, and literary context, the essays trace the reception of Petrarch's works in early modern Britain through the combined processes of linguistic and metric innovation, literary imitation, musical adaptation and cultural and material 'domestication'. The collection sheds light on the origins and development of early modern English Petrarchism as part of wider transnational – and indeed, translational—European literary culture.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Fashioning English Petrarchism: Translation, poetics, and the English miscellany
• Part II: Re-mediating Petrarchan poetry: Lines of transmission and transformation
• Part III: Re-framing the Triumphi: Genre, paratext, gender
• Bibliography
• Index