BiblioVault - Books about Translations into English

Jeppe of the Hill and Other Comedies by Ludvig Holberg

Translated by Gerald S. Argetsinger and Sven H. Rossel

Southern Illinois University Press, 1990

These eight comedies comprise the most extensive collection of Ludvig Holberg plays ever offered in the English language.

The translators’ general introductions establish a cultural context for the comedies and break new ground in understanding the importance of Holberg’s comic aesthetic. Argetsinger’s extensive experience in theatre and Rossel’s preeminence as a Scandinavian Studies scholar assure that the translations are not only accurate but stage-worthy.

The collection opens with The Political Tinker, the first Danish play to be produced in the new Danish Theatre, and ends with The Burial of Danish Comedy, literally the funeral service for the bankrupt theatre. Three more of Holberg’s renowned character comedies follow, Jean de France, Jeppe of the Hill, and Erasmus Montanus, along with his literary satire Ulysses von Ithacia. The final two plays demonstrate his ability to write shorter comic works, The Christmas Party, a scathing comedy of manners, and Pernille’s Brief Experience as a Lady, a situation comedy that satirizes the practice of baby-switching.

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John Gower

Poems on Contemporary Events

David R. Carlson

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2011

Journeys of a Mystic Soul in Poetry and Prose

Cecilia del Nacimiento

Iter Press, 2012

This edition, which offers a bilingual selection of poetry and selected prose translated into English by the nun-author Cecilia del Nacimiento (1570–1646), increases contemporary scholars’ access to, and therefore understanding of, the Spanish early modern religious and intellectual milieu. A significant, rarely-studied mystic and poet, and member of the Discalced Carmelite Order in the years after St. Teresa of Avila’s death, Cecilia del Nacimiento exemplifies the range of possibilities used by women writers who worked within the conventions of hegemonic discourses, while creating a unique literary voice.
—Stacey Schlau
Professor, Department of Languages and Culture and the Women’s Studies Program
West Chester University, Pennsylvania

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Juvenal and Persius

Juvenal

Harvard University Press, 2004

Mordant verse satire.

The bite and wit of two of antiquity’s best satirists are captured in this Loeb Classical Library edition.

Persius (AD 34–62) and Juvenal (writing about sixty years later) were heirs to the style of Latin verse satire developed by Lucilius and Horace, a tradition mined in Susanna Braund’s introduction and notes. Her notes also give guidance to the literary and historical allusions that pepper Persius’ and Juvenal’s satirical poems—which were clearly aimed at a sophisticated urban audience. Both poets adopt the mask of an angry man, and sharp criticism of the society in which they live is combined with flashes of sardonic humor in their satires. Whether targeting common and uncommon vices, the foolishness of prayers, the abuse of power by emperors and the Roman elite, the folly and depravity of Roman wives, or decadence, materialism, and corruption, their tone is generally one of righteous indignation.

Juvenal and Persius are seminal as well as stellar figures in the history of satirical writing. Juvenal especially had a lasting influence on English writers of the Renaissance and succeeding centuries.

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