Description
Book SynopsisTranslation was a critical mode of discourse for early modern writers. Gifting Translation in Early Modern England: Women Writers and the Politics of Authorship examines the intersection of translation and the culture of gift-giving in early modern England, arguing that this intersection allowed women to subvert dominant modes of discourse through acts of linguistic and inter-semiotic translation and conventions of gifting. The book considers four early modern translators: Mary Bassett, Jane Lumley, Jane Seager, and Esther Inglis. These women negotiate the rhetorics of translation and gift-culture in order to articulate political and religious affiliations and beliefs in their carefully crafted manuscript gift-books. This book offers a critical lens through which to read early modern translations in relation to the materiality of early modern gift culture.
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: ‘Transformance’: Renaissance Women’s Translation and the Performance of Gift Exchange
Chapter 1: ‘Thys my poore labor to present’: Mary Bassett’s Translation of Eusebius’s
Ecclesiastical History Chapter 2: ‘For the comodite of my countrie’: Nation, Gift, and Family in Lady Jane Lumley’s
Tragedie of Iphigeneia Chapter 3: ‘Graced both with my pen and pencell’: Prophecy and Politics in Jane Seager’s
Divine Prophecies of the Ten Sibills Chapter 4: ‘The fruits of my pen’: Esther Inglis’s Translation of Georgette de Montenay’s
Emblemes ou Devises Chrestiennes Conclusion: ‘Shall I Apologize Translation?’
Bibliography
Appendix 1: Table of Emblems and Dedicatees in Esther Inglis’s
Cinquante Emblemes Chrestiens (1624)
