Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe

Peter Burke, R. Po-chia Hsia0521862086, 9780521862080

This groundbreaking volume gathers an international team of historians to present the practice of translation as part of cultural history. Although translation is central to the transmission of ideas, the history of translation has generally been neglected by historians, who have left it to specialists in literature and language. This book seeks to achieve an understanding of the contribution of translation to the spread of information in early modern Europe. It focuses on non-fiction: the translation of books on religion, history, politics and especially on science, or ‘natural philosophy’, as it was generally known at this time. The chapters cover a wide range of languages, including Latin, Greek, Russian, Turkish and Chinese. The book will appeal to scholars and students of the early modern and later periods, to historians of science and of religion, as well as to anyone interested in translation studies.

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Table of contents :
Cover……Page 1
Half-title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Contents……Page 7
Notes on contributors……Page 9
Introduction……Page 13
PART I Translation and language……Page 17
I……Page 19
II……Page 22
III……Page 23
IV……Page 28
V……Page 32
VI……Page 33
VII……Page 36
VIII……Page 47
CHAPTER 2 The Catholic mission and translations in China, 1583–1700……Page 51
Subjects……Page 52
Translators……Page 56
Process and reception……Page 58
Conclusion……Page 61
CHAPTER 3 Language as a means of transfer of cultural values……Page 64
CHAPTER 4 Translations into Latin in early modern Europe……Page 77
I……Page 78
II……Page 80
III……Page 81
IV……Page 82
V……Page 83
VI……Page 90
PART II Translation and culture……Page 93
CHAPTER 5 Early modern Catholic piety in translation……Page 95
The northern epicentre……Page 98
Spain’s golden age……Page 103
The French century……Page 107
Looking ahead……Page 109
Introduction……Page 113
Genre I – the law and constitutions……Page 118
Genre II – monarchs and republics……Page 121
Genre III – reason of state……Page 127
Genre IV – the literature of resistance……Page 129
Translation and intention I – James I and the Basilikon doron……Page 130
Translation and intention II – Jean Barbeyrac and natural law……Page 133
Conclusion – boundaries of difference……Page 136
I……Page 137
II……Page 139
III……Page 141
IV……Page 143
V……Page 145
VI……Page 146
VII……Page 148
Appendix 1: The most translated historians……Page 152
Appendix 2: Editions of Guicciardini on the origins of the Papal States……Page 153
CHAPTER 8 The Spectator, or the metamorphoses of the periodical: a study in cultural translation……Page 154
The rise of the periodical, 1450–1700……Page 155
The fortunes of The Spectator, or a case study in cultural translation……Page 158
The ‘Spectator Question’ and the debate on cultural translation……Page 165
PART III Translation and science……Page 173
Definition of the corpus: a process of reduction……Page 175
From one vernacular to others……Page 177
Latin versus vernacular: reshaping through translation……Page 179
The cultural status of languages……Page 180
Latin, reference editions and collected works……Page 182
Commercial interests versus ideological motives……Page 185
Conclusion: towards the constitution of a universal bibliotheca philosophorum?……Page 190
The last Byzantine decades……Page 192
The Greek communities of the Ottoman Empire……Page 197
CHAPTER 11 Ottoman encounters with European science: sixteenth- and seventeenth-century translations into Turkish……Page 204
Scientific texts in Arabic and their Turkish translations……Page 205
Sixteenth century: seamen and physicians convey European cartographical and medical knowledge……Page 208
Seventeenth century: translations from European cartographers, anatomists and iatrochemists……Page 212
Kâtib Celebi’s Cihannümâ: translations from Gerhard Mercator, Abraham Ortelius and other European cartographers……Page 213
The translation of European astronomical tables……Page 217
Translations from European medical texts on diseases and therapies……Page 218
Shemseddin Itaqi’s Tesrih-i ebdân: the introduction of sixteenth-century European anatomical knowledge into Turkish medical literature……Page 221
Conclusion……Page 222
Translations in Russia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries……Page 224
On the eve of the reforms of Peter the Great……Page 227
Bibliography……Page 230
Index……Page 250