Overview
Montaigne's English Journey examines the genesis, early readership, and multifaceted impact of John Florio's exuberant translation of Michel de Montaigne's Essays. Published in London in 1603, this book was widely read in seventeenth-century England: Shakespeare borrowed from it as he drafted King Lear and The Tempest, and many hundreds of English men and women first encountered Montaigne's tolerant outlook and disarming candour in its densely-printed pages. Literary historians have long been fascinated by the influence of Florio's translation, analysing its contributions to the development of the English essay and tracing its appropriation in the work of Webster, Dryden, and other major writers. William M. Hamlin, by contrast, undertakes an exploration of Florio's Montaigne within the overlapping realms of print and manuscript culture, assessing its importance from the varied perspectives of its earliest English readers. Drawing on letters, diaries, commonplace books, and thousands of marginal annotations inscribed in surviving copies of Florio's volume, Hamlin offers a comprehensive account of the transmission and reception of Montaigne in seventeenth-century England. In particular he focuses on topics that consistently intrigued Montaigne's English readers: sexuality, marriage, conscience, theatricality, scepticism, self-presentation, the nature of wisdom, and the power of custom. All in all, Hamlin's study constitutes a major contribution to investigations of literary readership in pre-Enlightenment Europe.
Full Product Details
Author: William M. Hamlin (Professor of English, Washington State University)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.50cm
, Height: 2.80cm
, Length: 22.00cm
Weight: 0.554kg
ISBN: 9780199684113
ISBN 10: 0199684111
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 14 November 2013
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Reviews
Hamlin's astute assessment of the colorful, controversial John Florio adds another vital dimension to this rich contribution to the history of reading ... Highly recommended. D. M. Moore, Choice Reviews
Montaigne's English Journey is a richly researched and valuable appraisal of [John] Florio's role as Montaigne's intermediary in England and of how Florio's readers reacted to, excerpted, amplified, and sometimes corrected his version. A fine book, recommended to students and scholars of the French and English Renaissances. Phillip John Usher, Renaissance Quarterly This book is a major intervention ... Hamlin's scholarship is prodigious. Peter G. Platt, English Studies Hamlin's astute assessment of the colorful, controversial John Florio adds another vital dimension to this rich contribution to the history of reading ... Highly recommended. D. M. Moore, Choice Reviews Hamlin's carefully researched book is impressively alive to subtle shifts of register across languages, genres and bibliographical formats. He has uncovered significant amounts of new material, and the thought-provoking insights he makes on almost every page are sure to intertraffique with many early modern disciplines. Daniel Starza Smith, Review of English Studies
Author Information
William M. Hamlin teaches English at Washington State University. Specialising in early modern literature, he has published widely on Shakespeare, Montaigne, Renaissance drama, and philosophical scepticism. His books include Tragedy and Scepticism in Shakespeare's England and The Image of America in Montaigne, Spenser, and Shakespeare, and he has been the recipient of research fellowships from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Huntington Library, and the British Academy.
