Moralizing the Italian Marvellous in Early Modern England

The appropriation of Italian literature in early modern England frequently undergoes a double process of domestication and foreignization – to employ Lawrence Venuti’s definition of translation strategies. Through a manipulation of the Italian material and an alteration of its original purposes, the English authors/translators strive to portray Italy as an exotic land. Italian literature itself was no stranger to a certain inclination towards the foreign and its mysteries: epic poems and prose fiction throughout the medieval age and the Renaissance manifest an interest for the marvellous – the Italian mirabile – raised both by geographic distance and by the curiosity towards extra-European customs. Nevertheless, when Italy is translated, it becomes itself a source of exoticism: although the distance between the two cultures cannot have been too pronounced (Delabatista 2021:19), Italian culture is examined by translators with a dose of suspicion and a caution that often resembles an outright defence. Whereas the general amazement towards foreign countries had led to a gusto for the marvellous in Italian literature, when transferred over the Channel, Italian culture is time and again “husbanded”, according to an English taste for moralisation. Because of its position, exotic yet adjacent – in custom, language (Latin is still the lingua franca) and, until 1534, religion – Italy’s closeness is dangerous as it somehow has the potential to become understandable and accessible to English readers, without the intervention of translation. For this very reason, translators feel the urge to preventively tame Italianate culture: its contents are directed towards diverging purposes, more and more removed from an original widespread delectatio. Thus, before entering the English printing market, translated Italian works have to be made solidly serviceable: the meraviglioso has to turn into utile. This collection aims to show the various declinations of the marvellous/mirabile and the moralised version of its uniqueness, often translated into exemplum in order to fit the needs of the English readers/public. We will look at early modern English translators as mediators of this exchange, in order to show how it is through their very presence that Italy can be portrayed as an exotic country, with more or less valid background knowledge of Italy’s way of living. Through the analysis of various forms of literature (novella, epic poem, play, essay), experiencing multiple reshufflings in the hands of heterogeneous translators, we seek to focus our attention on the mechanism of appropriation and rejection of Italian culture through imported topoi and narremes.