This is the first volume in the four-volume edition of The Works of Lucy Hutchinson, the first-ever collected edition of the writings of the pioneering author and translator. Hutchinson (1620-81) had a remarkable range of her interests, from Latin poetry to Civil War politics and theology. This edition of her translation of Lucretius's De rerum natura offers new biographical material, demonstrating the changes and unexpected continuities in Hutchinson's life between the work's composition in the 1650s and its dedication in 1675. Hers is the first complete surviving English translation of one of the great philosophical poems , a challenging text at the borderlines of poetry and philosophy. For the first time, the Lucretius translation is made available alongside the Latin text Hutchinson used, which differs in innumerable ways from versions known today. The commentary provides multiple ways into further understanding of the translation and its contexts. Written at a momentous period in political and literary history, Hutchinson's Lucretius throws light on the complex transition between 'ancient' and 'modern' conceptions of the classical canon and of natural philosophy. It offers a case study in the history of reading, and more specifically of reading by a woman. Through close comparison with three contemporary translations, this edition situates Hutchinson's version in the context of the shifting poetic languages of the seventeenth century, and facilitates an approach to Lucretius' often rebarbative Latin. It further demonstrates the remarkable ways in which Hutchinson's engagement with this 'atheistical' poem leaves deep traces on her later, militantly Calvinist prose and verse.
Show moreThis is the first volume in the four-volume edition of The Works of Lucy Hutchinson, the first-ever collected edition of the writings of the pioneering author and translator. Hutchinson (1620-81) had a remarkable range of her interests, from Latin poetry to Civil War politics and theology. This edition of her translation of Lucretius's De rerum natura offers new biographical material, demonstrating the changes and unexpected continuities in Hutchinson's life between the work's composition in the 1650s and its dedication in 1675. Hers is the first complete surviving English translation of one of the great philosophical poems , a challenging text at the borderlines of poetry and philosophy. For the first time, the Lucretius translation is made available alongside the Latin text Hutchinson used, which differs in innumerable ways from versions known today. The commentary provides multiple ways into further understanding of the translation and its contexts. Written at a momentous period in political and literary history, Hutchinson's Lucretius throws light on the complex transition between 'ancient' and 'modern' conceptions of the classical canon and of natural philosophy. It offers a case study in the history of reading, and more specifically of reading by a woman. Through close comparison with three contemporary translations, this edition situates Hutchinson's version in the context of the shifting poetic languages of the seventeenth century, and facilitates an approach to Lucretius' often rebarbative Latin. It further demonstrates the remarkable ways in which Hutchinson's engagement with this 'atheistical' poem leaves deep traces on her later, militantly Calvinist prose and verse.
Show morePart I
Dedication
Acknowledgements and permissions
List of illustrations
Abbreviations and conventions
Introduction
Lucretius, De rerum natura: the Latin text, books 1-6
Hutchinson's Lucretius, books 1-6
Part II
Commentary
Bibliography and Abbreviations List
Index
Honorable mention: Modern Language Association (Prize for a Scholarly Edition)
Reid Barbour is Professor of English at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published widely in the field of
early modern studies, including books on classical reception,
religion, prose fiction, and John Selden. He is the editor of
Studies in Philology.
David Norbrook has taught at Magdalen College, Oxford and the
University of Maryland and is currently Merton Professor of English
Literature, University of Oxford. He has published widely on
Renaissance literature and history.
[an] outstanding edition ... This fine-grained, rigourous edition
brings us as near as a modern scholarly edition can to the
experience of reading the manuscript of Hutchinson's translation
alongside the Latin text of 1631 by Daniel Paraeus which she mainly
used ... Painstaking reconstruction of Hutchinson's compositional
processes and a detailed engagement with her intellectual world are
two of the contributions offered by the excellent, 320-page-long
commentary.
*Sarah Knight, Times Literary Supplement*
a collaborative scholarly achivement to which future students of
classical and English literature will be deepy indebted.
*Robert Wilcher, Modern Language Review*
provides more than three hundred pages of extensive, detailed,
line-by-line commentary, and the volume concludes with a useful
bibliography and an intelligent index ... This edition finally
makes it possible for readers to estimate the extent of Hutchinsons
achievement from a multitude of angles. Even scholars not mainly
concerned with Hutchinson or with female authorship will find these
notes and commentaries of value.
*H. C. Erik Midelfort, Sixteenth Century Journal*
Barbour and Norbrook have given us in Hutchinsons Lucretius a
splendid example of the best new research in many related areas and
a magnificent tribute to the enterprise of the author herself. It
is a brilliant beginning for Oxfords ambitious project of her
complete Works.
*Hugh de Quehen, Translation and Literature*
As well as serving its primary purpose of assisting readers making
their way through Hutchinsons translation, then, this commentary
will be of interest to practically anyone concerned ... with the
history of Lucretianism. At other points, in engaging with the
scholarship of our own times, the commentary has things to say to
contemporary Lucretian studies as well.
*Stuart Gillespie, Renaissance Studies*
The substantial, 146-page introduction by N. gives a thorough
account of the contexts of Hutchinsons translation ... insightful
analysis of Hutchinsons contradictory position in relation to
Lucretius a contradiction that Greenblatt noted is highly
persuasive ... represents a boon to scholars of Lucretius and his
reception, of Hutchinson, of early modern women writers, and of
early modern studies more generally.
*Mihoko Suzuki, Classical Review*
[The] comprehensive introduction and brilliant line-by-line notes
synthesize scholarship from fields as wide-ranging as translation
studies and the history of science, not to mention the rich
traditions of Lucretian commentary. Hutchinson's impressive
rendering of this sublime and difficult poem has been meticulously
transcribed from the partially autograph manuscript ... An
exemplary start for Oxford's four-volume Works of Lucy Hutchinson
... Essential.
*D.M. Moore, CHOICE*
With their incisive introduction and impeccable textual work, Reid
Barbour and David Norbrook have produced a deeply impressive
edition of Lucy Hutchinsons sometimes labored, sometimes
shimmering, always invigorated translation of Lucretius.
*Honourable mention from the prize committee for the 2012 Modern
Language Association Prize for a Scholarly Edition*
a major event not just for the study of the reception of Lucretius
in the seventeenth century but for the study of Lucretius more
generally, the study of seventeenth-century poetics, the
examination of gender, and the related question of female
authorship in the early modern period. ... One of the signal
advantages of this generous edition is that we are now better
placed to understand the stresses of publishing translations of the
"naughty" pagan poets during an age of doctrinal purity and zeal.
... His vast poem still contained much that even Puritans could
find bracing or exhilarating. Like other early modern readers,
Hutchinson was drawn to this crucial element of the heathen
heritage like a moth to the flame. The remarkable editors of this
splendid edition show us why.
*H.C. Erik Midelfort, The Sixteenth Century Journal*
Their long introduction, learned commentary, and notes comprise by
far the best resource available for understanding the strange
conjunction of radical Protestantism, Epicureanism, and an
exceedingly complex, brilliant woman.
*Stephen Greenblatt, Common Knowledge*
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