Thomas More's Utopia in Early Modern Europe: Paratexts and Contexts
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This book provides the first complete account of all the editions of Utopia, whether vernacular or Latin, printed before 1650, together with a transcription of all the prefatory materials they contain. The reception of the idea of Utopia in early modern Europe has been studied extensively before: what has been lacking is a composite picture of how Utopia moved by means of translation from culture to culture and of the ways in which particular versions offered themselves to their readers.Part I consists of a series of chapters which provide a contextual and interpretative framework for each national group of translations; in Part II, the substantive paratexts of all the extant translations of Utopia printed between 1524 and 1643 are reproduced both in the original language and in English translation. The book also contains a chapter sketching the fortunes of the Latin paratexts and editions up to 1650, and a transcription of a single Latin paratext which has never, to our knowledge, been printed in modern times.This book will be of interest to specialists in early modern cultural history and history of the book, to graduate students working in these fields, and to anyone for whom the extraordinary success of More’s Utopia as a book published on the European market remains a perennial fascination.
List of IllustrationsPt. I Versions of Utopia: A European mapIntroduction 31 A Protean text: Utopia in Latin, 1516-1631 142 The German translations: humanist politics and literary journalism 323 The Italian Utopia of Lando, Doni and Sansovino: paradox and politics 474 The French versions of Utopia: Christian and cosmopolitan models 675 The English translation: thinking about the commonwealth 876 The Dutch translation: austerity and pragmatism 1047 The Spanish translations: humanism and politics 110Afterword: transferring Utopia 128Pt. II The paratextsPrinciples and editorial conventions 145The German paratexts 149The Italian paratexts 171The French paratexts 181The English paratexts 205The Dutch paratexts 219The Spanish paratexts 233A Latin paratext: Milan 1620 273Tables of prefatory material in Latin editions 277Bibliography 281Index 295
