Petrarch’s Triumphi in the British Isles

General outline: 1. Introduction The aim of this section is to introduce the notion of translation of vernacular poetry in early modern England and Scotland, and to highlight the ideological and literary relevance of translating Petrarch’s Triumphi. A case will be made for this text having been neglected by modern scholarship in favour of the translations of the Canzoniere, while it can be shown that the Triumphi enjoyed a much earlier and much more durable fame in Europe as well as in the British Isles, being translated at least twice in its entirety, with individual books and smaller sections being translated or adapted a number of times. I shall also look at the reception of Petrarch’s work in the British Isles, looking at the circulation of the book in the original Italian and in the various French translations, as well as at the use that is made of the Triumphi motifs not only in literature but in paintings, music, etc. In the second part of the Introduction I shall analyse the translations presented in the volume, drawing on what we know of the various translators, and on the cultural contexts in which these translations were undertakes. Special attention will be devoted to the paratextual material present in some of the extant translations (Morley, Fowler, Hume). 2. Critical edition of the texts In accordance with the guidelines of the Series, the texts are presented in modernized spelling and punctuation; the edition aims to offer as complete and articulate as possible a conspectus of the key translations of the Triumphi in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England and Scotland, making available texts that are now inaccessible, and offering a ready comparison with more accessible versions. All texts are edited from the original manuscripts, when these are extant, or from the earliest printed editions. The texts will provided with editorial and commentary notes. The only translation that is offered in its entirety is William Fowler’s, since it was last edited in 1914 for the Scottish Text Society, in a volume that is now to be found only in the major libraries. The other complete translation of the Triumphi (by Henry Parker, Lord Morley) is available in a 1971 edition for Harvard University Press, so here I shall only include the Triumphus Mortis. This will allow a comparison with the partial translations of the same Triumphus by Mary Sidney and Edward Dyer, as well as with the complete translation of the same book by Anna Hume (in the case of Hume who translated the Triumphus Cupidinis, Pudicitie and Mortis, Ashgate printed a facsimile of the original edition in 2011). In the final section there will be three fragmentary translations that have survived, by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, by John Florio, and by (allegedly) Elizabeth I. This is the complete table of contents of the edited texts: William Fowler, The Triumphs of Petrarke A critical edition based on the presentation manuscript, now Edinburgh, University Library, De.1.10; in the editorial notes, I shall make reference also to Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Hawthornden MS 2063, fol. 39, which includes a slightly different version of the first 32 lines of the Triumphus Cupidinis; and to the critical edition in The Works of William Fowler, Secretary to Queen Anne, Wife of James VI, ed. by Henry W. Meikle, Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1914. Triumphus mortis: Henry Parker, Lord Morley, from The Tryumphes of Fraunces Petrarcke The edition is based on the original edition, printed in London probably in 1555 (the translation itself was undertaken during the reign of Hanry VIII; but the manuscript has not survived), and now extant in five copies. Reference will be made to the modern critical edition by D. D. Carnicelli (Harvard University Press, 1971). Only the translation of the Triumphus mortis will be included. Edward Dyer, from Prayse of Nothing In 1585 the printer H. Jackson, in London, published Prayse of Nothing, a short prose writing that the frontispiece attribute to “E. D.” subsequently (and somewhat controversially) identified with Edward Dyer, courtier and poet. The tract contains, on sig. G.i.r, a short extract in poetry, twenty lines that are a translation of Triumphus mortis, I.79-100. It is of course impossible to say whether E.D. is the translator. Approximately 25 copies of this boo survive; the text was reprinted in Writings in Verse and Prose of Sir Edward Dyer, edited by A. B. Grosart (1872). Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, The Triumphe of death This is a translation of the first two chapters of Petrarch’s Triumphus mortis. Probably written in the 1590s, it is extant in London, Library of the Inner Temple, MS 538.43.1, fols 286-89. It was first edited by Frances B. Young in an article published in PMLA in 1912, and there is a modern reprint (or so I suppose, since no editorial details are given) of the same text in the Penguin edition of her works (Isabella Whitney, Mary Sidney and Aemilia Lanyer. Renaissance Women Poets, ed. by Danielle Clarke, 2000). Anna Hume, from The Triumphs of Love: Chastitie: Death This is based on the original edition, printed in Edinburgh in 1644. A modern facsimile was produced in 2011 by Ashgate, with a very short introduction and no commentary or notes. In this case, too, I shall edit only the translation of the Triumphus mortis. Fragments: Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, ‘Such Wayward Ways’ Written around 1540, this poem is a meditation in Poulter’s measure. The last 35 of the 50 lines of the long lyric are Surrey’s translation of Petrarch’s Triumphus Cupidinis, III.151-87. The poem first appeared in Songs and Sonnets, also known as Tottel’s Miscellany (1557), and is of course included in the various editions of Surrey’s works, but it would be worth having it in the volume. John Florio, from Florios Second Frutes In the dedicatory epistle of his 1591 book, John Florio makes a very short allusion to the Triumphus Fame, quoting a line in Italian; in Chapter 12 he also translated lines 174 and 76-90 of Triumphus Pudicitie. The 1591 printed edition is available in a number of copies and in EEBO – no modern edition exists. Elizabeth I (?), ‘Triumphe Petrarcke’ Probably dated around 1595, this fragment (a translation of the first 90 lines of Triumphus Eternitatis) appears in the codex known as the Harington manuscript, now at Arundel Castle. This sixteenth-century folio anthology of verse, which has been partly dispersed over the centuries, includes 324 poems. The Petrarch translation has been very tentatively attributed to Elizabeth, on the basis of a nineteenth-century pencilled note on the first flyleaf, and of the subscription ‘E.R.’ that follows the translation. Ruth Hughey edited the whole manuscript (The Arundel Harington Manuscript of Tudor Poetry, 1960), and the translation was subsequently re-printed by Mueller and Scodel in their 2003 edition of Elizabeth’s translations. 3. Bibliography The bibliography includes three separate sections: manuscripts, printed sources, and critical literature. It aims at offering a complete survey not only of the existing English translations or adaptations of the Triumphi, but also of the studies on Petrarch’s influence in early modern England and Scotland. Like the volume as a whole, it should become a reference point for a field that remains virtually unexplored, or is investigated only in a very fragmentary way.