Dept. for English and American Studies

Postal address: Schellingstr. 3 RG, 80799 München
Telephone: 089-2180-3388
Telefax: 089-2180-1385
http://www.anglistik.uni-muenchen.de/

Project director

Prof. Dr. Andreas Höfele
Telephone (Sekr.): 089-2180-3388
andreas.hoefele@anglistik.uni-muenchen.de

Assistants

Dr. des. Gabriela Schmidt, wissenschaftl. Mitarbeiterin
schmidt@lmu.de
Telephone: 089-2180-4079

Daniella Jancsó, M.A., wissenschaftl. Mitarbeiterin

Dr. des. Bettina Boecker, wissenschaftl. Mitarbeiterin

Retrospect

Lectures/papers and expeditions of the Project director/assistants

Description of the project

Linguistic Plurality in Early Modern England: Thomas More and others

Linguistic plurality is an important factor in Early Modern culture which governs approaches to Classical Antiquity as well as interactions with other contemporary cultures. The project will look at various forms and functions of linguistic plurality within 16th-century English literature, aiming — in cooperation with other related projects of the collaborative research centre — to draw a more detailed and accurate picture than has previously been done of what distinguishes the 'belated' English Renaissance. The project will focus on the theory and practice of translation, an activity in which many controversial issues of the period (such as the debate about style and imitatio veterum and the argument about the status of the vernaculars) converge. In accordance with the heuristic guidelines offered by the centre's key paradigms "pluralization and authority", all forms of linguistic plurality can further be understood as asking questions about social conformity and cultural prestige, about discursive power in society, politics and religion.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the works of Thomas More, whose writings, replete with multiple manifestations of polyglossia and intertextuality, will be the first area of interest. More is an outstanding participant in the complex processes of pluralization and authorization which mark early Tudor culture. His multiple roles as a scholar, educator, politician and theologian place him at the intersection of several discourses whose ideological, stylistic and generic variety is reflected in his writings. In addition, Thomas More's close relations with humanists on the continent, especially with Erasmus of Rotterdam, make a consideration of these phenomena from a European perspective indispensable. The study will concentrate on More's translations and his theoretical reflections on translating problems, especially his comments on the issue of Bible translation. The project will also include all those linguistically hybrid texts in which More employs the lexical and stylistic repertoire of various languages. And, finally, it will investigate translations, remarks on the theory of language, as well as educational tracts, grammars and dictionaries of other early Tudor authors.

Within this textual field of investigation the project pursues three main objectives. The first is to describe More's methods and theoretical premises and those of other early Tudor translators, looking into their discursive background and conditioning, such as the existing links between forms of translatio and the continental debate on imitatio. The second aim is to trace the process of linguistic pluralization triggered by the interplay of humanist Latin and Early Modern English, as well as the processes of authorization accompanying it and the factors governing it. In this context, the specific contribution of translation to the vernacular question in Tudor England will be of particular interest. Using the results of these first two phases as a basis, the third will turn to processes of pluralization and authorization in other areas of society, such as theology, anthropology, social order and politics, which are discussed in Thomas More's writings. They will be viewed as interconnected with and dependent on language.

In a later stage (starting from 2007) the range of source texts will be extended to include authors of the later 16th century. Around the middle of the century, an ongoing practice of comparison between languages contributes to the 'rhetorization' of English, the development of a more acute and thoroughly cultivated awareness of style. This interaction of languages, which was mainly generated through the medium of translation, will be studied by comparing writings about translation theory with writings on rhetoric and literary criticism. The information thus gained about the development of English towards an autonomous literary language, on a par with Latin, Italian and French, will finally form the basis for investigations of the immense productive impact of linguistic plurality during the Elizabethan age. The Elizabethan translators' growing orientation towards their target language, as well as their characteristic self-fashioning as independent writers of literature, can be considered as part of an ongoing process of learning from the foreign language, which at the same time must be described as a process of increasing dissociation from its authority.

Symposium

Representing Religious Pluralization in Early Modern Europe (July 2005)