English 4371: Cultural Encounters

Householder, fall 2005

9/8/05: Translating Empire

 

 

 

  1. Historical backgrounds and contexts.

 

 

    1. Sebastian Münster, b. 1488 d. 1552.  Basel (English traditionally: Basle [ba:l], German: Basel [ba:z@l], French Bâle [ba:l], Italian Basilea [bazilE:a]) is Switzerlands third most populous city (188,000 inhabitants in the canton of Basel-City as of 2004; the 690,000 inhabitants in the conurbation stretching across the imm His Cosmographia (Cosmographei oder Beschreibung aller Lander, Basel 1544) was the earliest German description of the world. 

 

Figure 1.  Sebastian Münster, c. 1552; painted by Christoph Amberger

 

 

 

    1. Richard Eden.  b. 1521 – d. 1576

 

 

                                                              i.      Like Münster, Eden is significant for translating information about the New World and presenting it in a readable vernacular. 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      The 1550s marks Englands first sustained effort to enter the contest for colonial territory. 

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      Eden is an important part of that effort.  1553, he translated and published from the Latin Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia as A Treatyse of the newe India with other new founde landes and Islands, as well eastwarde as westwarde, as they are knowen and founde in these our dayes.

 

 

 

 

                                                           iv.      1555, he translated Peter Martyr’s The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India, conteyning the Navigations and Conquestes of the Spanyardes, with particular description of the most ryche and large Landes and Islandes lately found in the West Ocean

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Reading the Treatyse.  

 

 

 

    1. Selection 

 

 

 

 

    1. Framing 

 

 

 

                                                              i.      Dedication to the Duke of Northumberland.

 

 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      Epistle to the Reader

 

 

1.      Two major aims of this new knowledge: Where is the gold?  And How do we get there? 

 

 

 

2.      Antipodes

 

 

 

 

    1. Columbus

 

 

                                                              i.      Women

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                            ii.      Cannibals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                          iii.      Gold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Magellan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    1. Vespucci. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion: Two cautionary vignettes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next time: Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies