In recent years the twin themes of travel and translation have come to be regarded as particularly significant to the study of early modern culture and literature. Traditional notions of 'The Renaissance' have always emphasised the importance of the influence of continental, as well as classical, literature on English writers of the period; and over the past twenty years or so this emphasis has been deepened by the use of more complicated and sophisticated theories of literary and cultural intertextuality, as well as broadened to cover areas such as religious and political relations, trade and traffic, and the larger formations of colonialism and imperialism. The essays collected here address the full range of traditional and contemporary issues, providing new light on canonical authors from More to Shakespeare, and also directing critical attention to many unfamiliar texts which need to be better known for our fuller understanding of sixteenth-century English literature. This volume makes a very particular contribution to current thinking on Anglo-continental literary relations in the sixteenth century. Maintaining a breadth and balance of concerns and approaches, Travels and Translations in the Sixteenth Century represents the academic throughout Europe: essays are contributed by scholars working in Hungary, Greece, Italy, and France, as well as in the UK. Arthur Kinney's introduction to the collection provides an North American overview of what is perhaps a uniquely comprehensive index to contemporary European criticism and scholarship in the area of early modern travel and translation.

Contents: Introduction, Arthur F. Kinney. Travels: Travailing abroad: the poet as adventurer, Elizabeth Heale; Painful pilgrimage: 16th-century English travellers to Greece, Efterpi Mitsi; Foreign bodies: politics, polemic, and the continental landscape, Cathy Shrank; Representing Rome and the self in Anthony Munday's The English Roman Life, Melanie Ord. Translations: The European transmission of caritas in More's Dialogue of Comfort, Benedek Péter Tóta; Translatio Mori: Ellis Heywood's 'Thomas More', Mark Robson; Translation and the definition of sovereignty: the case of Elizabeth Tudor, Georgia E. Brown; Italian weeds and English bodies: translating 'The Adventures of Master F.J.', Amina Alyal; Sir John Harington and the poetics of Tudor translation, Massimiliano Morini; Richard the Redeless: representations of Richard II from Boccaccio and Polydore to Holinshed and Shakespeare, Roy Rosenstein; Afterword, Mike Pincombe; Bibliography; Index.