SHAKSPER 2002: First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 11/25/02 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.2330  Monday, 25 November 2002

[1]     From:   R.A. Cantrell <racan@flash.net>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Nov 2002 07:29:24 -0600
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays

[2]     From:   Markus Marti <Markus.Marti@unibas.ch>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Nov 2002 15:28:41 +0100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays

[3]     From:   Claude Caspar <claudecaspar@msn.com>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Nov 2002 10:29:36 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays

[4]     From:   Alan August <ataugust@mindspring.com>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Nov 2002 08:34:09 -0700
        Subj:   Re: First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays

[5]     From:   Hugh Grady <hugh.grady@verizon.net>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Nov 2002 11:41:24 -0500
        Subj:   RE: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays

[6]     From:   Holger Schott <hschott@fas.harvard.edu>
        Date:   Friday, 22 Nov 2002 13:00:49 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           R.A. Cantrell <racan@flash.net>
Date:           Friday, 22 Nov 2002 07:29:24 -0600
Subject: 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Essays

>I am searching for a date for the first English translation of
>Montaigne’s Essays.  I am wondering if Shakespeare had access to an
>English translation or if he would have had to read Montaigne in French,
>if he read Montaigne at all.

You might get some good information out of Pollard and Redgrave: Short
Title Catalogue of English Books. There is a book out titled
Shakespeare's Debt to Montaigne from the  1920's (I think) but I  don't
recall the author. HTH

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Markus Marti <Markus.Marti@unibas.ch>
Date:           Friday, 22 Nov 2002 15:28:41 +0100
Subject: 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Essays

Florio's Translation of Montaigne's Essays was first published in 1603.
See: Renascence Editions text, provided by Professor Emeritus Ben R.
Schneider, Lawrence University, Wisconsin.
http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/montaigne/

Markus Marti

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Claude Caspar <claudecaspar@msn.com>
Date:           Friday, 22 Nov 2002 10:29:36 -0500
Subject: 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Essays

I know the answers to your questions are well-documented & discussed,
and if not at [my] hand, easy to access; sometimes knowing something
exists is itself an answer.  The issue boils down to not so much
Florio's publication date of 1603, but whether WS accessed Florio's
manuscript previously.

I just noticed that a new book may interest you, due in January:
"Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Montaigne: Power and Subjectivity from
Richard II to Hamlet", by Hugh Grady.

See: http://alor.univ-montp3.fr/SFS/Congres/C2003Prog.html

Also see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A471133

and from Yahoo Montaigne Group:

From:  Edward Macdowell
Date:  Sat Jan 13, 2001  4:55 pm
Subject:  Re: Montaigne's Influence on Shakespeare?

--- In montaigne@egroups.com, "Jeremy Caplan" <jeremycaplan@y...> wrote:

>To what extent was Shakespeare influenced by Montaigne? There are
>passages in several of the plays that suggest that the bard drew on
>ideas from Montaigne, but to what extent has this influence been
>explored by scholars? What are the best resources/articles/books on
>this subject? Any thoughts, ideas or research suggestions on this
>topic would be appreciated.

The definitive work on this subject is by George Coffin Taylor. It is
titled "Shakespeare’s Debt to Montaigne" (Harvard 1925) and while some
of his supposed connections are a little far fetched it makes a strong
case that Shakespeare was very familiar with and influenced by the
Florio Montaigne.

Florio's first translation of the Essais was published in 1603.  Taylor
assembled a list of HUNDREDS of words and phrases, many obscure, that
appear in the Florio translation that Shakespeare used in his plays
written AFTER 1603 but which never appear prior to that date.

The most well known link between Shakespeare and Montaigne is of course
Gonzalo's description of an ideal commonwealth in "The Tempest"
(II.i.148-169) which is nearly a direct quotation from "On Cannibals"...

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Alan August <ataugust@mindspring.com>
Date:           Friday, 22 Nov 2002 08:34:09 -0700
Subject:        Re: First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays

Ms. Drumm,

J.M. Cohen says in his edition, "The Essays have been translated at
least five times into English.  The first to attempt them was the
Italian Protestant refugee John Florio, the friend of Philip Sydney and
possibly of Shakespeare.  Though his version is considered one of the
greatest Elizabethan translations, its virtues lie in the vigour of its
English rather than in the truth of its rendering...".

If you're looking for a complete translation of the three books that's
true to the original, I recommend M.A. Screech's 1991 translation
published by Penguin.

There is plenty of evidence that Shakespeare did read the Essays;
Montaigne's essay On Cannibals is thought to have influenced the
playwright in creating Caliban and The Tempest, for example.

Florio's translation is dated 1603.

Alan

[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Hugh Grady <hugh.grady@verizon.net>
Date:           Friday, 22 Nov 2002 11:41:24 -0500
Subject: 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Comment:        RE: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Essays

The published translation of John Florio's Englishing of Montaigne's
complete essays--the first in English as far as is known--appeared in
1603, and of course Shakespeare's only fully accepted indebtedness to
the Essays occurs in the 1611 "Tempest." This being said, there remain
numerous other possibilities.

Shakespeare may have had access to the on-going translation by Florio
before its publication. Florio had been tutor to the Earl of
Southampton, Shakespeare's patron. Florio's biographer Frances Yates
suggests that he began work on the translation in 1598, and a number of
studies since the late-19th century have argued that there are
conceptual and perhaps verbal echoes of Montaigne in the plays from
"Hamlet" (1600?) through "Coriolanus" (1608). However, there is an
equally large skeptical tradition which has long pointed out that none
of the proposed parallels is as much of a "smoking gun" as the borrowing
in "The Tempest" clearly is. 100 ciphers are still a cipher, Pierre
Villey wrote about these efforts.

Of course knowledge of Montaigne in England pre-dates Florio's work.
Most notable is that of the Bacon brothers. Francis acknowledged his
indebtedness to Montaigne by borrowing his title and term "Essays" in
his published collection of 1597. His brother (and Essex advisor)
Anthony Bacon had met Montaigne while in France and returned to England
in 1591, presumably with an acquaintance with Montaigne's work. Could
Shakespeare, learning about the essays from sources like these, have
read (some of) them in French? All we can say, judging from the French
scenes in "Henry V" (not a completely reassuring piece of evidence as to
his mastery of the language!) and his lodging with the French Huguenot
couple the Mountjoys some time before 1604, is that it is not
impossible.

In my forthcoming book from OUP, "Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and
Montaigne:
Power and Subjectivity from 'Richard II' to 'Hamlet,'" (due out Jan. 03)
I argue that significant parallels in ideas of the self and in a broadly
skeptical methodology mark Shakespeare's intellectual kinship with
Montaigne at least from the time of "Richard II" (1595), but I invoke
Foucault's ideas of discursive, indirect connections to by-pass the
undecidable issue of when and how much Shakespeare knew Montaigne's
work. Parts of the argument appeared in my article in the Spring 2000
issue of the journal "Comparative Literature." Several other scholars
are working this field as well, as attested by the seminar on Montaigne
and Shakespeare at the World Shakespeare Conference in Valencia in 2000.

Best,
Hugh Grady

[6]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Holger Schott <hschott@fas.harvard.edu>
Date:           Friday, 22 Nov 2002 13:00:49 -0500
Subject: 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Comment:        Re: SHK 13.2325 First English Translation of Montaigne's
Essays

Yes, Florio's 1603 translation (STC 18041) was the first edition in
English. The Folger has a copy with a forged Shakespeare signature.

Holger

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