It investigates the text as a literary artefact produced as much by its author as by the age imbibing the multifarious ambiguities and uncertainties of a transitional era. This article attempts to foreground More’s Utopia against the Renaissance backdrop of complex and unprecedented transformations both on the individual and the collective plain. Such an aim amounted to heresy in the eyes of the Catholic Church, leading Thomas More to write, "Tyndale changed in his translation the common known words to the intent to Aided by the relatively recent appearance of the printing press in England in 1476, however, English scholar William Tyndale translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek texts and, along with Martin Luther, advocated for widespread dissemination of scripture in vernacular languages. John Wycliffe translated the Vulgate Bible into English in the fourteenth century, but his translation did not find a widespread audience. ![]() Translation played a very prominent role in the Reformation. These decisions reflect unintentional consequences for More's text, and this aspect of its history and reception is what has kept Utopia an important text in higher education and part of the Western literary canon. I argue that since the 1556 translation by Ralph Robynson, More's text has elicited a subjective reading experience that has resulted in subjective translation decisions. ![]() In addition, I will look at a 1947 edition compiled by Mildred Campbell to demonstrate how she used gendered language in a manner similar to Hexter, Adams, and Baker-Smith. Indeed, even Robert Adams's relatively recent translation for the popular Norton edition contrasts greatly with Baker-Smith's new Penguin translation. Hexter's translation for the Yale edition, the first modern edition and still an important version of the text, and explore subsequent translations of key Latin passages in the original. In this essay I will compare several translations of More's Utopia to demonstrate the way in which English translations have changed over time. For instance, the new Penguin Classics edition of More's Utopia, translated and edited by luminary More scholar Dominic Baker-Smith, largely stays close to the spirit of earlier twentieth-century translations, but some of Baker-Smith's translation decisions reflect the contemporary political landscape of academia. ![]() Originally printed in Latin in 1516, new translations appear regularly, and frequently these translations reflect values altered by the ever-changing Western political climate. Thomas More's Utopia continues to elicit scholarly interest and has retained a firm place in the literary canon and British literature survey courses.
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