Renaissance Cultural Crossroads

In Renaissance Cultural Crossroads: Translation, Print and Culture in Britain, 1473-1640, twelve scholars assemble the latest interdisciplinary research in the fields of translation and print in Britain and appraise for the first time the connection between the two. The section Translation and Early Print discusses how translation shaped the beginnings of British book production. 'Translation, Fiction and Print' examines some Italian and Spanish literary translations and their paratexts. Instruction through Translation demonstrates how translators established an international fund of knowledge. Shaping Mind and Nation through Translation focusses on translations specifically disseminating knowledge of medicine, navigation, military matters, and news. The volume constitutes a timely contribution to the ever-expanding fields of translation studies and print history but is also relevant to cultural, social and intellectual history.

The importance of 'Renaissance Cultural Crossroads' lies in its appreciation and promotion of the multi-faceted reach of translation in Britain from the arrival of printing until the the outbreak of the civil war, highlighting the impressive number and wide variety of works translated.

The culture of early modern England and Europe was richly hybrid, forged through interactions between diverse nations and language communities, and through new encounters with the wider world beyond Europe. Ranging from the neo-Latin poetry of an English author to the Spanish plays of a nun in the New World, from royal portraits exchanged in diplomatic negotiations to travelling companions in the Ottoman Empire, this multidisciplinary volume presents exciting new research on early modern exchanges.

This handbook of English Renaissance literature serves as a reference for both students and scholars, introducing recent debates and developments in early modern studies. Using new theoretical perspectives and methodological tools, the volume offers exemplary close readings of canonical and less well-known texts from all significant genres between c. 1480 and 1660. Its systematic chapters address questions about editing Renaissance texts, the role of translation, theatre and drama, life-writing, science, travel and migration, and women as writers, readers and patrons. The book will be of particular interest to those wishing to expand their knowledge of the early modern period beyond Shakespeare.

This book investigates the importance of printing in early-modern Central Europe, revealing a complicated web of connections linking printers and scholars, Jews and Christians, from the Baltic to the Adriatic.

This volume offers a broad exploration of the cultural history of democracy in the Renaissance. The Renaissance has rarely been considered an important moment in the history of democracy. Nonetheless, as this volume shows, this period may be seen as a “democratic laboratory” in many, often unexpected, ways. The classicizing cultural movement known as humanism, which spread throughout Europe and beyond in this period, had the effect of vastly enhancing knowledge of the classical democratic and republican traditions. Greek history and philosophy, including the story of Athenian democracy, became fully known in the West for the first time in the postclassical world. Partly as a result of this, the period from 1400 to 1650 witnessed rich and historically important debates on some of the enduring political issues at the heart of democratic culture: issues of sovereignty, of liberty, of citizenship, of the common good, of the place of religion in government. At the same time, the introduction of printing, and the emergence of a flourishing, proto-journalistic news culture, laid the basis for something that recognizably anticipates the modern “public sphere.” The expansion of transnational and transcontinental exchange, in what has been called the “age of encounters,” gave a new urgency to discussions of religious and ethnic diversity. Gender, too, was a matter of intense debate in this period, as was, specifically, the question of women's relation to political agency and power. This volume explores these developments in ten chapters devoted to the notions of sovereignty, liberty, and the “common good”; the relation of state and household; religion and political obligation; gender and citizenship; ethnicity, diversity, and nationalism; democratic crises and civil resistance; international relations; and the development of news culture. It makes a pressing case for a fresh understanding of modern democracy's deep roots.