On Famous Women
The Middle English Translation of Boccaccio's 'De Mulieribus Claris'
edited by Janet Cowen
Paperback (Published)
(June 2015)
ISBN: 9783825364557
6.06 x 9.21 inches
Price: $85.00
In stock
London, British Library, MS Additional 10304 contains the unique copy of one of the only two known English translations of Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris prior to modern times (the other being that by Henry Parker, Lord Morley (EETS OS 214 (l943)). The present text consists of twenty-one of Boccaccio’s 106 lives of famous women, translated into seven-line stanzas. It exists in printed form only in the edition by Gustav Schleich (1924), not now readily accessible, and in selections edited by Julius Zupitza (1892). It is of interest and significance in several respects: as an instance of the cultivation of Italian humanist writing in fifteenth-century England, and in particular of the reception of Boccaccio; as an example of verse in the Chaucerian tradition on the subject of women; and as an example of selective adaptation in translation from Latin to the vernacular. The Introduction to this edition includes consideration of language and versification, and an analysis of the Middle English translator’s strategies of selection from the source. The text is followed by a commentary including exposition of difficult passages, notes on significant modification of the source, and points of lexicographical interest, a select glossary, and an index of proper names.
- Edited by Janet Cowen
Other Titles in this Series
The Middle English ‘Wise Book of Philosophy and Astronomy’
A Parallel-Text Edition. Edited from London, British Library, MS Sloane 2453 with a Parallel Text from New York, Columbia University, MS Plimpton 260
Volume 47
The Middle English ‘Liber Aureus and Gospel of Nicodemus’
Edited from London, British Library, MS Egerton 2658
Volume 48
Three Sermons for ‘Nova Festa’, together with the ‘Hamus Caritatis’
Edited from Caxton's 1491 Edition of John Mirk's 'Festial'
Volume 37
A Christian Mannes Bileeve
Edited from Washington, Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections, MS 4
Volume 60
Exornatorium Curatorum
Edited from Wynkyn de Worde's Text in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, SP. 335.2
Volume 49
The Middle English Text of ‘Caxton’s Ovid’, Book I
Edited from Cambridge, Magdalene College, Old Library, MS F.4.34 with a Parallel Text of The 'Ovide moralise en prose II'. Edited from Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS fonds francais 137
Volume 43
A Middle English Statute-Book Part I
'Statuta Antiqua'. Edited from Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS B 520
Volume 44
Pepysian Meditations on the Passion of Christ
Edited from Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2125
Volume 56
The Middle English ‘Medicines for Horses’
Edited from the Manuscript formerly at Kensington Palace, HRH Duke of Gloucester MS s.n. (olim York House MS 45)
Volume 69
A Middle English Statute-Book
Part II: Tracts. Edited from Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS B 520
Volume 57
The Middle English Version of William of Saliceto’s ‘Anatomia’
A Critical Edition. Based on Cambridge, Trinity College MS R. 14.41 with a Parallel Text of The Medieval Latin 'Anatomia'
Volume 39
A Late-Medieval History of the Ancient and Biblical World / Volume II
Introduction, Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliography
Volume 64
The Middle English ‘Kynge Appolyn of Thyre’
Translated by Robert Copland. Edited from the Text published by Wynkyn de Worde (1510). With a Parallel Text of The Medieval French 'La cronicque et hystoire de Appollin, roy de Thir'
Volume 58
The Middle English Text of ‘The Art of Hunting’ by William Twiti
Edited from an Uncatalogued Manuscript in a Private Collection, Ashton-under Lyne, with a Parallel Text of The Anglo Norman 'L'Art de Venerie' by William Twiti. Edited from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 424/448
Volume 40
‘An Epistle of Noble Poetrye
' A Middle English Translation of Christine de Pizan's 'Epistre d'Othea': Edited from London, British Library, MS Harley 838
Volume 65
Þe Instytucyonys and Specyal Dedys of Relygyows Carmelitys
Edited from London, Lambeth Palace, MS 192
Volume 54
John Lydgate’s ‘Lives of SS Edmund & Fremund’ and the ‘Extra Miracles of St Edmund’
Edited from British Library MS Harley 2278 and Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 46
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