The Aeneid of the North: William Caxton’s Eneydos and Gavin Douglas’s Eneados

This article analyses two early translations of Vergil’s Aeneid in the British Isles: William Caxton’s Eneydos, published in 1490, and Gavin Douglas’s Eneados, a translation completed in 1513 and published in London in 1553. The latter text presents original prologues and marginal notes to the text, rubrics and articulate conclusive material; Caxton adds a general Prologue to his work, in which he sets out his translating and publishing policy. The two writers use this liminal space to discuss the issue of translation and the attitude of the late medieval/early modern scholar towards the classical text par excellence. These two versions thus stand on the threshold between manuscript and print, and might indicate new possibilities of use of the printing medium. In my analysis, they also offer a case study of the different directions translation may take at the closing of the Middle Ages.