Translation, history and print: A model for the study of printed translations in early modern Britain

Agency, Patronage and Power in Early Modern English Translation and Print Cultures: The Case of Thomas Hawkins

“…The Renaissance provides rich material for research in translation studies as well as literary and book history, as demonstrated by the numerous recent research projects on early modern English print culture (see Hosington, 2011;Boutcher 2015;Coldiron, 2015;Silva, 2016;Belle and Hosington, 2017). According to Brenda Hosington (2015a), the printed book and the printing press have been at the heart of projects which were spearheaded in part thanks to Eisenstadts' 1979 book The Printing Press as an Agent of Change.…”

“…Indeed, reflecting on the valuable contribution of the notion of agency, researchers at the intersection between translation studies and book history even acknowledge the agency of material innovations like the printing press. Such is also the case for works that use translation theory and book history for the purpose of inquiring after the literary and social histories of the Renaissance, such as Marie-Alice Belle and Brenda Hosington's research project Translation and the Making of Early Modern English Print Culture (1473-1660), which culminated in the production of the free-access catalogue Cultural Crosscurrents in Stuart and Commonwealth Britain ([CCC] Belle and Hosington, 2017), which is itself dedicated to documenting the paratext of translations into English. By providing paratextual content as well as biographical data on translators, the catalogue helps reconstruct Renaissance print cultures and social networks, and reveals the roles played by agents who had until recently gone unnoticed.…”

“…My research draws on scholarship on the cultural and ideological aspects of translation in Stuart Court culture (see Norbrook, 1999;Clarke, 2001) and builds on recent studies of the intersection between translation and print in early modern Europe (see Hosington, 2011;2015a;2015b;Coldiron, 2015). I study patterns of patronage (Lefevere, 1992), literary production, and text circulation in the context of Henrietta Maria's English court; and I probe the political, social, religious, and print networks involved in the production of translations associated with her court, and extending well beyond its social or geographical boundaries (Demetriou and Tomlinson, 2015;Belle and Hosington, 2017). My goal is to identify key agents who operated within these networks, and determine what place they held in political, cultural and social spheres, and how they acquired, maintained or lost their position within these circles.…”

“…To establish an overview of these networks, I examine translations documented in digital catalogues such as the Renaissance Cultural Crossroads ([RCC] Hosington, 2011), Cultural Crosscurrents in Stuart and Commonwealth Britain ([CCC] Belle and Hosington, 2017), Early English Books Online (EEBO), and the Bibliothèque nationale de France's Gallica. Furthermore, I conduct paratextual analyses of translations, especially those dedicated to Queen consort Henrietta Maria, to King Charles I, or to the royal couple.…”

“…Furthermore, I conduct paratextual analyses of translations, especially those dedicated to Queen consort Henrietta Maria, to King Charles I, or to the royal couple. The culture of printed translations in early modern England has recently drawn interest from experts in translation history, book history and even digital humanities (Boutcher, 2015;Hosington, 2015a;2015b;Silva, 2016;Belle and Hosington, 2017). The study of patronage in this complex historical context is situated at the intersection of these fields, and is a conducive lens for network analysis.…”