Browsing by Author "Cauchi, Simon John"

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A Critical Annotated Edition of Sir John Harington's Aeneid VI Verse-Translation and Commentary (1604)
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1987) Cauchi, Simon John
Sir John Harington's Aeneid VI verse-translation and commentary, long lost to sight and hitherto unpublished, is here edited for the first time. The copy-text is Trumbull Additional MS 23 in the Berkshire Record Office, a fair copy made for presentation to Prince Henry, who in 1604 was ten years old. All but the parallel Latin text of this MS is in Harington's autograph. However, I have also consulted the only other known MS, a posthumous scribal copy of the commentary only, now in the Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The edition is 'critical' not 'diplomatic', but my emendations are not very numerous and are restricted almost entirely to 'substantives'. The translation is in ottava rima, an unusual and not altogether happy choice for Virgil, but understandable in view of Harington's earlier translation of Ariosto in the same stanza. Harington's commentary combines elementary assistance to the reader with a detailed and systematic critique of Virgil's fable (the Descent of Aeneas to the Underworld). His approach is theological rather than literary, and he draws heavily on his recent reading of Augustine, especially in De Civitate Dei. The final chapter of the commentary, 'Of reeding poetry', sounds in places almost like a palinode of Harington's famous defence of poetry in the Ariosto Preface. Thus the work is of interest on several counts. It throws new light on Harington's known concerns-and especially on his part in the long-running contemporary controversy about the descent of Christ into hell. It records a detailed response to the Aeneid VI by a minor writer of idiosyncratic personality but utterly conventional education and orthodox opinions. And like other works by Harington, this one has some unexpected 'meriments' in the prose. In my introduction and notes, I set the work in the context of Harington's life and literary career. I annotate Harington's (not Virgil's) text, and in doing so make frequent reference to his other writings. I have been able to trace with some exactitude his use of various sources-including (for example) Phaer, Servius, Charles Estienne, and King James I, as well as the Bible, Augustine, and Ariosto. For purposes of comparison and contrast, I also frequently refer to the works of Harington's contemporary, Ben Jonson.
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The 'setting foorth' of Harington's Ariosto (1591): a study of authorial intention and literary significance in book design
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 1981) Cauchi, Simon John
Harington's Ariosto (1591) has been much studied both for its literary and for its bibliographical interest. The translation itself is still astonishingly fresh, readable and entertaining, and by the standards of the time it was remarkably faithful to the original.The first edition of 1591 is a handsome folio, complete with Dedication, Preface, an engraved title-page, forty-six engraved illustrations, and an elaborate apparatus comprising verse-arguments, annotations, a general allegory of the whole work, a life of Ariosto and other ancillary matter. The principal model for the English book was the Italian edition published in Venice in 1584 by Francesco de Franceschi, but Harington also drew on a wide range of other sources in preparing his work for publication. The basic contention of this thesis is that Harington, far from being casual or negligent in his approach as he has sometimes been thought to be, in fact took great care to reconcile and integrate all this diverse material, so that the book as a whole should serve in a responsible way to introduce Ariosto to English readers ignorant of Italian, and so that it should at the same time be a fitting demonstration of the translator's versatile abilities. It is argued that Harington himself, not the printer Richard Field, was primarily responsible for the design of the printed book, and that Harington's work as a book-designer is an essential part of his achievement. To back up this contention, a reconstruction is attempted of Harington's preparation of the printer's copy and of his participation in the work of the printing-house. The case-study of Harington's Ariosto occupies chapters II-IX of the thesis. In chapters I and X, it is argued in a more general way that the design of early printed books deserves much greater consideration than it is usually given by scholarly editors and by literary critics. McNulty's 1972 edition of Harington's Ariosto is a comparatively good example of a critical edition based on a careful study of the bibliographical as well as the literary qualities of the original editions, yet it nevertheless fails in certain significant ways to present the work as Harington wished it to be presented. It is argued that the fundamental principles of editorial fidelity need to be re-examined and re-formulated in a way that will take account of authorial intention and literary significance in book design, and that further detailed studies of individual works are necessary so that an adequate basis may be laid for historical generalisation and synthesis.