READING CHAUCER IN NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, IN THE 1630s: THE COMMENDATORY VERSES TO FRANCIS KYNASTON'S AMORUM TROILI ET CRESEIDÆ

Abstract

The Latin translation of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde by Sir Francis Kynaston or Kinaston, published in part in 1635 as Amorum Troili et Creseidae libri duo priores Anglico-Latini ('The two first books of the Loves of Troilus and Criseyde, in English and Latin'), has long been acknowledged as a particularly sensitive and detailed example of the seventeenth century's scholarly engagement with Middle English poetry.1 Kynaston's work was published not in London, as we might expect, but in Oxford, by the printer to the university, John Lichfield, and the fifteen commendatory poems that appear in the volume offer a multitude of perspectives not only on Kynaston's project, but also on Chaucer and his writings. Among the authors of these prefatory verses there is a peculiar dominance of fellows of New College, and the detailed knowledge of Chaucer's works that they reveal gives a suggestive insight into how groups of Oxford scholars engaged with Kynaston's activities as a translator through their own reading of Chaucer. In this article we investigate these commendatory verses, a narrow but rich seam of evidence for a variety of attitudes to Chaucer in the seventeenth century that occupy an unusual position in the history of Chaucer's reception.2 Taken as a whole, we argue, the poems suggest a peculiar concentration of Chaucerian enthusiasm in New College, Oxford, in the period.Kynastons 'Amorum Troili' and its commendatory versesThe very fact that Kynaston (1586/7-1642) should choose to publish the first two books of his Latin Troilus and Criseyde in Oxford suggests, already, a scholarly venture; the local press seldom undertook anything that was not prompted by, or at least vendible to, the local academics and students. That the Latin translation and Middle English original are presented in parallel, and with explanatory glosses, furthers the impression that this was what we might think of as an academic edition. Kynaston himself had studied at Oriel College, Oxford, before moving to London from 1605 to take up residence in Lincoln's Inn.3 After being called to the bar in 1611, he remained in London, balancing his eclectic intellectual interests with the pursuit of a more public life. He entered the service of the court and was knighted by James I in 1618,4 and his achievements included, in 1635, the founding of the Musaeum Minervae, an academy for young noblemen. Kynaston seems to have valued his own self-image as scholar and courtier, and indeed he projects this image onto Chaucer, going to great lengths to prove that Chaucer had been an intimate of the king and an esquire of the body.5 Although there is relatively sparse biographical evidence for Kynaston's continuing relationship with his alma mater after his departure for London, the very fact that Kynaston arranged for the publication of his Amorum Troili in Oxford helps demonstrate some continuing connection to the university and its scholars.As promised in the preface printed alongside the Amorum Troili, Kynaston went on to complete a five-book translation of Chaucer's poem, which, although never published, survives in a single manuscript with Kynaston's Latin translation of Robert Henryson's Testament of Cresseid.6 Throughout, this manuscript is replete with copious notes and glosses, a beguiling combination of history, natural philosophy, and personal anecdote. John Urry drew upon it for his posthumous 1721 edition of Chaucer, and Kynaston's achievement in his translation of Troilus has been masterfully elucidated more recently by Richard Beadle, who rightly rehabilitates Kynaston as a major figure in the history of English editing.7 But as well as delving with almost philological detail into Chaucer's Middle English to create the base-text of his translation, Kynaston also trims the later books, somewhat flattening the presentation of Criseyde, and eliminating the poem's final reference to the Virgin Mary. This last shift may be another example of the typical post-Reformation tendency to present Chaucer as proto-Protestant in his affinities. …