Approaching Petrarch’s Trionfi: paratexts in the early modern Scottish translations

Petrarch’s Trionfi enjoyed great favour in early modern England and Scotland, and there are a number of partial and complete translations, printed and unprinted: the most important is probably Henry Parker, Lord Morley’s translation, printed in 1555, while others, recently the focus of critical attention, remained in manuscript, as with Mary Sidney’s version of the first two chapters of the Triumphus Mortis, or with the fragment of the Triumphus Aeternitatis attributed to Elizabeth I. Scottish translations of Petrarch have been given decidedly less attention (though the general issue of the attention towards Italian and French literary models in the Renaissance is the object of recent studies). It is my contention, however, that the two Scottish translations by William Fowler and Anna Hume deserve a closer look, since through their analysis one can trace the changing relationship between translator and readers in the passage from manuscript to printed text, within Scottish culture, in which printing made rather a late entry. Although Hume’s version, as noted above, was immediately printed and Fowler’s remained in manuscript, in the latter case we have a clearly defined case of what Harold Love calls scribal publication, since we possess both an incomplete manuscript draft and a polished manuscript presentation copy, introduced not only by the already mentioned dedicatory letter, but also by six sonnets and a short poem composed by a number of fellow poets (including King James VI). Anna Hume instead has her version introduced by three poems, two dedicated to Elizabeth of Bohemia and one to a more general Reader. In both cases these articulate paratexts underline the connection between the lofty matter and the aristocracy of the intended readers: in both cases we can hypothesize, with a fair degree of accuracy, a circle of readers that were known to the writers, although a comparison may also highlight the role of print and the demands it makes in the case of Hume’s translation. Early modern writers and printers, tentatively exploring the new community created by the onset of printing, often experimented quite freely with paratexts, sometimes attempting to maintain the freedom and flexibility offered by manuscripts and incunables, sometimes transforming the printed page into a space of cultural encounter and exchange, sometimes treating their manuscript, especially when meant for scribal publication, into an object with the firmness and durability we associate with the printed text. Fowler’s and Hume’s efforts are seen against the background of contemporary English translations of the Trionfi, both by men (Henry Parker, Lord Morley; Edward Dyer; John Florio) and women (Mary Sidney and Elizabeth I). This bespeaks a far wider interest for this text than was reserved to Petrarch’s Canzoniere: while early modern English and Scottish poets imitated isolated sonnets of the Canzoniere, using Petrarch’s blueprint to develop their own version of the sonnet sequences, they evidently viewed the Trionfi as a more articulate challenge, and while respectfully adhering to the main text, they used prologues and dedicatory epistles not only to relate with their intended reader but also to frame the conceptual complexity of Petrarch’s thought. Whether the main interest of Scottish translators of Petrarch was linguistic analysis developed in the courtly context, as in the case of Fowler, or spiritual meditation, as with Anna Hume, they used their prefatory material to signal their appropriation of a contemporary classic, perfecting a process of transcreation (to use Derrick McClure’s felicitous word) and making Petrarch part of the newly created Scottish canon.