An Ocean Untouched and Untried:The Tudor Translations of Livy

Philo, John-Mark (2020) An Ocean Untouched and Untried:The Tudor Translations of Livy. Oxford English Monographs . Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 9780198857983

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Abstract

This is a study of the translation and reception of the Roman historian Livy in early-modern England. The work examines the four Tudor translations of Livy’s history of Rome, the Ab Urbe Condita, into the English vernacular during the sixteenth century and their engagements with the most pressing political and cultural debates of the day, from Henrician appropriations of Hannibal to arguments over the status of women. The first chapter examines Livy’s initial reception into print in Europe, outlining the attempts of his earliest editors to impose a critical order onto his enormous work. The subsequent chapters consider the respective translations undertaken by Anthony Cope, William Thomas, William Painter, and Philemon Holland, situating them among the wider trends in Classical Reception during the early-modern era. Each translation is compared in detail with the Latin original, highlighting the changes Livy’s history experienced in the process of translation. The study considers how these translations responded to and were shaped by the most recent developments in European scholarship on Livy’s history and classical historiography more generally. So too the study examines Livy’s impact on more popular forms of English literature during the Renaissance, especially the works of Shakespeare. Ultimately this research demonstrates that Livy played a fundamental though underexplored role in the development of vernacular literature, historiography, and political thought in early-modern England.

Item Type:	Book
Uncontrolled Keywords:	anthony cope,classical reception,livy,philemon holland,renaissance,shakespeare,the tudors,translation studies,william painter,william thomas,arts and humanities(all) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Medieval and Early Modern Research Group
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	04 Jun 2025 14:30
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2025 09:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99396
DOI:	10.1093/oso/9780198857983.001.0001

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