Antiquity Made Present in Reformation England: Classical Translation and the Politics of Counsel, 1530–1580

In this interdisciplinary study, Fred Schurink provides a major reinterpretation of translations of the classics in the half-century following Henry VIII's break from Rome. He reveals how translators applied ancient Greek and Roman texts to many of the key social, political, and religious developments and debates of Tudor England. Drawing on the authority of the classics and the concept of counsel, translators presented themselves as instructors and advisers to members of the regime and contributed to the development of the public sphere as a space for debate and negotiation of political opinion. Here, Schurink expands the canon of English translations of the classics by directing attention to important but overlooked authors such as Plutarch, Demosthenes, and Frontinus as well as manuscript and Neo-Latin translations. By uncovering continuities between classical translations and the manuscript marginalia of humanist scholars, he brings the histories of translation and reading into dialogue with each other.