Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe

This 2007 volume sheds new light on the practice of translation as part of cultural history.

Peter Burke (Edited by), R. Po-chia Hsia (Edited by)

9780521862080, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 March 2007

264 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.56 kg

"...it is a pleasure to encounter a group of essays that immerses the reader in scholarship on so many different languages." -Jennifer Spinks, H-German

This groundbreaking 2007 volume gathers an international team of historians to present the practice of translation as part of cultural history. Although translation is central to the transmission of ideas, the history of translation has generally been neglected by historians, who have left it to specialists in literature and language. This book seeks to achieve an understanding of the contribution of translation to the spread of information in early modern Europe. It focuses on non-fiction: the translation of books on religion, history, politics and especially on science, or 'natural philosophy', as it was generally known at this time. The chapters cover a wide range of languages, including Latin, Greek, Russian, Turkish and Chinese. The book will appeal to scholars and students of the early modern and later periods, to historians of science and of religion, as well as to anyone interested in translation studies.

Introduction Peter Burke and R. Po-chia Hsia
Part I. Translation and Language: 1. Cultures of translation in Early Modern Europe Peter Burke
2. The Catholic Mission and translations in China, 1583–1700 R. Po-chia Hsia
3. Language as a means of transfer of cultural values Eva Kowalská
4. Translations into Latin in Early Modern Europe Peter Burke
Part II. Translation and Culture: 5. Early Modern Catholic piety in translation Carlos Eire
6. The translation of political theory in Early Modern Europe Geoffrey P. Baldwin
7. Translating histories Peter Burke
8. The Spectator or the metamorphosis of the periodical: a study in cultural translation Maria Lúcia Pallares-Burke
Part III. Translation and Science: 9. The role of translations in European scientific exchanges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Isabelle Pantin
10. Scientific exchanges between Hellenism and Europe: translations into Greek, 1400–1700 Efthymios Nicolaidis
11. Ottoman encounters with European science: sixteenth- and seventeenth- century translations into Turkish Feza Günergun
12. Translations of scientific literature in Russia from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century S. S. Demidov
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC], European history [HBJD]