Abstract
AbstractThis article offers a reading of the relationship between original and translated poetry in the work of the seventeenth‐century author, diplomat, and translator, Richard Fanshawe. It argues that the physical space between original and translated poetry published in the same volume becomes itself a site of signification. It focuses in particular on the original poem ‘On the Earle of Straffords Tryall’ and the translated sonnet ‘The Fall,’ and on the two examples of self‐translation ‘The Escuriall / In Aedes magnificas’ and ‘On His Majesties Great Shippe/ Ad eximiae magnitudinis Navem.’ The relationship between the two sets of poems can be better understood by taking into account their relative positions in the 1648 volume in which they were published, examining them both as independent pieces and as a unit, resulting in a new and extended reading of both sets of poems. In the process, this article argues that in Fanshawe’s work, and in mid‐seventeenth‐century English literature more broadly, the relationship between original and translated literature occupies a space between independence and continuity, and that translators took to their task with the same energy and creativity as writers of original verse.
Highlights
Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666), royalist, diplomat, translator, and poet, is not a household name, even for students of the seventeenth century
Fanshawe may have had many different roles: as the secretary to the Prince of Wales during the civil war; as the diplomatic envoy who finalised the negotiations for the marriage of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza; as ambassador to Portugal and Spain; as translator of Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido and Camões’ Os Lusíadas; and, as a poet attached to an amorphous group sometimes known as the ‘Cavalier Poets’
The names of Thomas Carew, John Suckling and Richard Lovelace are the ones that we most readily associate with this group; Fanshawe is usually forgotten
Summary
Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666), royalist, diplomat, translator, and poet, is not a household name, even for students of the seventeenth century.
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