Textual Encounters in an Age of Transition

Thomas More’s Translations between ‘Medieval’ and ‘Humanist’ Literary Culture

Bibliographic Data

ID20147288
AuthorsGabriela Schmidt (0000-0002-4248-0036, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume48 (Number 185
Issue3-4
Pages149-171
Publication date2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMoreana (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-8105 • E-ISSN: 2398-4961
PublisherEdinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3366/more.2011.48.3-4.8
OpenAlexW2585664295
LanguageEN
References cited31

Unlike the martyr, the politician and the humanist, Thomas More, the translator, has received little critical attention to date. Nonetheless, a remarkable number of More’s writings, especially during the early 1500s, were either direct translations or indirect transformations of foreign literary traditions. It is precisely his output as a translator that reveals More to be a transitional figure, who was as thoroughly aware of the trends in late medieval and early humanist literature in the vernacular as he was closely involved with the new humanist learning brought into England through Erasmus and his circle. By examining some of More’s early translations and imitations and placing them within the context of similar contemporary works, this article intends to present the rapidly changing literary culture of the early Tudor years as a crucial period of transition, whose complex variety can hardly be grasped through the simple binary opposition between ‘medieval’ and ‘humanist’

Art · Art history · Context (archaeology) · Erasmus · Humanism · Literature · Opposition (politics) · Poetry · Politics · The Renaissance · Theology · Transition (genetics) · Vernacular · Classics · Early Modern Women Writers · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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