English Printing, Verse Translation, and the Battle of the Sexes, 1476-1557 (Women and Gender in the Early Modern World)

Bringing to light new material about early print, early modern gender discourses, and cultural contact between France and England in the revolutionary first phase of English print culture, this book focuses on a dozen or so of the many early Renaissance verse translations about women, marriage, sex, and gender relations. Anne Coldiron here analyzes such works as the Interlocucyon; the Beaute of Women; the Fyftene Joyes of Maryage; and the Complaintes of the Too Soone and Too Late Maryed as well as the printed translations of writings of Christine de Pizan. Her selections identify an insufficiently discussed strand of English poetry, in that they are non-elite, non-courtly, and non-romance writings on women's issues. She investigates the specific effects of translation on this alternative strand of poetry, showing how some French poems remain stable in the conversion, others subtly change emphasis in their new context, but some are completely transformed. Coldiron also emphasizes the formal and presentational dimensions of the early modern poetic book, assessing the striking differences the printers' paratexts and visual presentation strategies make to the meaning and value of the poems. A series of appendices presents the author's transcriptions of the texts that are otherwise inaccessible, never having been edited in modern times. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Figures 8 Acknowledgments 10 Preface: To the Reader: Between the Sheets 12 1 Introduction 18 Contexts, Part I: Early Printing in England 19 Contexts, Part II: Translation 21 Contexts, Part III: Translated Poetry and English Poetics 23 France, Romance, and the Querelle; or, Gender, Genre, and Mode in Early Printed Poetry 24 An Alternative to Courtly, Romance, and Clerical Discourses: Features of the Poems 27 The Present Book: Chapters, Case Studies, and Approaches 33 2 “The Mireur and Maistresse” of “Intelligence”: Christine de Pizan’s Translated Authority in Early English Print 38 Survey of Translations of Christine’s Works in Early English Print 38 Taking Advice from a Frenchwoman: Printers, Paratexts, and Presentational Strategies in the Moral Proverbs 55 First Take: Christine and England 57 Second Take: “Oure” Elders, Christine’s Authority, and Caxton’s Presentational Strategies 61 “Taking” the Proverbs Themselves: The Relation of Content to Paratexts 69 Third Take: Authority, Fame, and the Early Chaucerian Canon 73 Outtakes and Postscripts: The Morale Prouerbes in the Sixteenth Century 82 3 “La Femme Replique”: Debating Women in English Translation 86 Wynkyn de Worde’s Interlocucyon 87 Sympathy Reframed: An Ovidian Dido as Chastity Warning 102 Dangerous Beauty, Or the Ugliness of The Beaute of Women 114 Conclusion 128 4 Framing Misogamy: The Prologue and Prohemye to The Fyftene Joyes of Maryage 130 “The Prologue of the Translatour” 134 “The Prohemye of the Auctour” 140 Woodcuts, the Lost Epilogue, Misogamy and Misogyny 153 Conclusion 156 5 Translating Marriage Complaints 158 Voicing the Woman’s Side: A Complaynt of them that be to soone maryed 161 Copland’s Acrostics (Para)textual Histories, and Printers’ Interventions 175 “Th’ instrument is not in point”: Impotence, Wifely Sexuality, and Late Marriage 182 Conclusion 188 6 Misogamy and Translation at Henry VII’s Court: Heywood’s A Mery Play 190 The Contexts 191 Misogamy and the Translation 194 Johan and Literary History 205 Appendix 1: The “Letter of Dydo to Eneas”; The Beaute of Women 210 Appendix 2: The Paratexts to the Fyftene Joyes of maryage 224 Appendix 3: The Marriage Complaints 232 Bibliography 254 Index 270 "Bringing to light new material about early print, early modem gender discourses, and cultural contact between France and England in the revolutionary first phase of English print culture, this book focuses on a dozen or so of the many early Renaissance verse translations about women, marriage, sex, and gender relations." "Anne Coldiron here analyzes such works as the Interlocucyon; the Beaute of Women; the Fyftene Joyes of Maryage; and the Complaintes of the Too Soone and Too Late Maryed as well as the printed translations of writings of Christine de Pizano Her selections identify an insufficiently discussed strand of English poetry, in that they are non-elite, non-courtly, and non-romance writings on women's issues. She investigates the specific effects of translation on this alternative strand of poetry, showing how some French poems remain stable in the conversion, others subtly change emphasis in their new context, but some are completely transformed. Coldiron also emphasizes the formal and presentational dimensions of the early modern poetic book, assessing the striking differences the printers' paratexts and visual presentation strategies make to the meaning and value of the poems." "A series of appendices presents the author's transcriptions of the texts that are otherwise inaccessible, never having been edited in modern times"--BOOK JACKET

Bringing to light new material about early print, early modem gender discourses, and cultural contact between France and England in the revolutionary first phase of English print culture, this book focuses on a dozen or so of the many early Renaissance verse translations about women, marriage, sex, and gender relations. Anne Coldiron here analyzes such works as the Interlocucyon; the Beaute of Women; the Fyftene Joyes of Maryage; and the Complaintes of the Too Soone and Too Late Maryed as well as the printed translations of writings of Christine de Pizano Her selections identify an insufficiently discussed strand of English poetry, in that they are non-elite, non-courtly, and non-romance writings on women's issues. She investigates the specific effects of translation on this alternative strand of poetry, showing how some French poems remain stable in the conversion, others subtly change emphasis in their new context, but some are completely transformed. Coldiron also emphasizes the formal and presentational dimensions of the early modern poetic book, assessing the striking differences the printers' paratexts and visual presentation strategies make to the meaning and value of the poems. A series of appendices presents the author's transcriptions of the texts that are otherwise inaccessible, never having been edited in modern times.