England’s Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Tudor, had a reputation for proficiency in foreign languages, repeatedly demonstrated in multilingual exchanges with foreign emissaries at court and in the extemporized Latin she spoke on formal visits to Cambridge and Oxford. But the supreme proof of her mastery of other tongues is the sizable body of translations she made over the course of her lifetime. This two-volume set is the first complete collection of Elizabeth’s translations from and into Latin, French, and Italian.

Presenting original and modernized spellings in a facing-page format, these two volumes will answer the call to make all of Elizabeth’s writings available. They include her renderings of epistles of Cicero and Seneca, religious writings of John Calvin and Marguerite de Navarre, and Horace’s Ars poetica, as well as Elizabeth’s Latin Sententiae drawn from diverse sources, on the responsibilities of sovereign rule and her own perspectives on the monarchy.  Editors Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel offer introduction to each of the translated selections, describing the source text, its cultural significance, and the historical context in which Elizabeth translated it. Their annotations identify obscure meanings, biblical and classical references, and Elizabeth’s actual or apparent deviations from her sources.

The translations collected here trace Elizabeth’s steady progression from youthful evangelical piety to more mature reflections on morality, royal responsibility, public and private forms of grief, and the right way to rule.  Elizabeth I: Translations is the queen’s personal legacy, an example of the very best that a humanist education can bring to the conduct of sovereign rule.

England’s Virgin Queen, Elizabeth Tudor, had a reputation for proficiency in foreign languages, repeatedly demonstrated in multilingual exchanges with foreign emissaries at court and in the extemporized Latin she spoke on formal visits to Cambridge and Oxford. But the supreme proof of her mastery of other tongues is the sizable body of translations she made over the course of her lifetime. This two-volume set is the first complete collection of Elizabeth’s translations from and into Latin, French, and Italian.
            Presenting original and modernized spellings in a facing-page format, these two volumes will answer the call to make all of Elizabeth’s writings available. They include her renderings of epistles of Cicero and Seneca, religious writings of John Calvin and Marguerite de Navarre, and Horace’s Ars poetica, as well as Elizabeth’s Latin Sententiae drawn from diverse sources, on the responsibilities of sovereign rule and her own perspectives on the monarchy.  Editors Janel Mueller and Joshua Scodel offer introduction to each of the translated selections, describing the source text, its cultural significance, and the historical context in which Elizabeth translated it. Their annotations identify obscure meanings, biblical and classical references, and Elizabeth’s actual or apparent deviations from her sources. 
            The translations collected here trace Elizabeth’s steady progression from youthful evangelical piety to more mature reflections on morality, royal responsibility, public and private forms of grief, and the right way to rule.  Elizabeth I: Translations is the queen’s personal legacy, an example of the very best that a humanist education can bring to the conduct of sovereign rule. 

 

 

Eric Ziolkowski’s monumental study examines Kierkegaard’s “whole ‘prolix literature,’” including both the pseudonymous and the signed published writings as well as the private journals, papers, and letters, in relation to works by five literary giants from different times and places: Clouds by Aristophanes; Parzival by the medieval German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach; Don Quixote by Cervantes; certain plays, particularly Hamlet, by Shakespeare; and the fictional, poeticphilosophical work Sartor Resartus, together with some of the essays by Kierkegaard’s Scottish contemporary Thomas Carlyle. No full or complete understanding of the writings of an author as prolific and complex as Kierkegaard is possible.

Yet Kierkegaard signals the essentially literary as opposed to strictly theological or philosophical nature of his writings. Ziolkowski first considers the notions of aesthetics and the aesthetic as Kierkegaard adapted them, and then his posture as a poet, as interrelated contexts of his selfconception as “a weed in literature.” After next taking account of the history of the critical recognition of Kierkegaard as a literary artist, he looks at an important characteristic of his literary craft that has received relatively little attention: the manner by which he and his pseudonyms read and quote other authors. Ziolkowski then explores the connections between the philosopher’s writings and those of other literary masters by whom he was directly influenced, such as Aristophanes, Cervantes, and Shakespeare; or of those who, while they did not directly influence him, gave paradigmatic expression to some of the same aspects of aesthetic, ethical, and religious existence that Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms portray. Ziolkowski’s seminal study will be of interest to Kierkegaard scholars, philosophers, and comparative literature scholars alike.

Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) wrote almost four hundred epistles in her lifetime, effectively insinuating herself into the literary, political, and theological debates of her day. At the same time, as the daughter of a Sienese dyer, Catherine had no formal education, and her accomplishments were considered miracles rather than the work of her own hand. As a result, she has been largely excluded from accounts of the development of European humanism and the language and literature of Italy. Reclaiming Catherine ofSiena makes the case for considering Catherine alongside literary giants such as Dante and Petrarch, as it underscores Catherine's commitment to using the vernacular to manifest Christ's message—and her own.
Jane Tylus charts here the contested struggles of scholars over the centuries to situate Catherine in the history of Italian culture in early modernity. But she mainly focuses on Catherine’s works, calling attention to the interplay between orality and textuality in the letters and demonstrating why it was so important for Catherine to envision herself as a writer. Tylus argues for a reevalution of Catherine as not just a medieval saint, but one of the major figures at the birth of the Italian literary canon.

 

 

The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy, one of the most groundbreaking works of twentieth-century Platonic studies, is now back in print for a new generation of students and scholars to discover. In this volume, distinguished classicist Seth Benardete interprets and pairs two important Platonic dialogues, the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, illuminating Socrates’ notion of rhetoric and Plato’s conception of morality and eros in the human soul.

            Following his discussion of the Gorgias as a dialogue about the rhetoric of morality, Benardete turns to the Phaedrus as a discourse about genuine rhetoric, namely the science of eros, or true philosophy. This novel interpretation addresses numerous issues in Plato studies: the relation between the structure of the Gorgias and the image of soul/city in the Republic, the relation between the structure of Phaedrus and the concept of eros, and Socrates’ notion of ignorance, among others.

Considered the first significant teacher of rhetoric in America, John Witherspoon also introduced Scottish moral philosophy to this country and as president of Princeton University reformed the curriculum to give emphasis to both studies. He was an active pamphleteer on religious and political issues and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Editor Thomas P. Miller argues that Witherspoon’s career exemplifies the Ciceronian ideal, and the eight selections Miller presents from the 1802 American edition of the Works corroborate that claim. This paperback edition includes a new preface by the editor that surveys the scholarship published on Witherspoon over the past twenty-five years and discusses how Miller’s own perspective on Witherspoon has changed during that time.