Early Modern Spain
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The database contains comprehensive bibliographical descriptions of all the translations from Spanish published in English in the early modern period, that we have identified. The corpus of published translations in English derived from Castilian originals is on a far greater scale than has been realised. The database contains at present around 450 textual records. However, users should be aware that it is a work in progress and that all aspects of the database will go on being supplemented on a periodic basis. If you would like to make a contribution to this, then please feel free to send us your comments and suggestions via the ‘Feedback form’.
The wealth of supplementary information about dedicatees, patrons, printers, translators and translation aims to set the steady and increasing flow of translations that proceeded from Spain and its colonial possessions, against a historical background that included two royal marriages (Arthur and then Henry to Catherine of Aragón, and Mary Tudor to Philip II), the despatch in 1588 of the greatest offensive fleet ever to set sail, and the serious but ultimately doomed courtship between Charles Prince of Wales and the Spanish Infanta in 1623.
While the translation of certain literary forms (i.e. prose fiction and theatre) has been surveyed, less is known about the numerous non-literary translations; from theological works such as Protestant adaptions of Fray Luis de Granada, devotional material for the recusant Catholic populations of Ireland, England and Scotland published at The English College Press in the Spanish Netherlands or at clandestine presses in Douai and St. Omer, to works of natural history, navigational treatises, New World chronicles, letter writing and etiquette manuals, textbooks on medicine, and military history.