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From its Nobel laureates to its literary festivals, modern-day Dublin lives up to its role as a literary capital. The question of whether Ireland experienced a cultural and literary Renaissance has received increasing scholarly attention in recent years. This book extends the discussion by engaging with the specific literary culture of its capital city. It begins with an argument for the internationalised literary culture of late medieval Dublin by an analysis of James Yonge's 'Memoriale'. The citizens of Dublin engaged with and actively read texts imported from London, as Dublin's own printing was limited. The book presents case studies that establish Dublin as an emerging city of Renaissance literature by focusing on Edmund Spenser's political and social connections and by examining the literature of complaint emanating from late Elizabethan Dublin. It analyses the constructed authorial personae of Richard Bellings, James Shirley and Henry Burnell residing in Dublin, and discusses the concepts of literary friendship. Sir James Ware's scholarly achievements are analysed and his extensive intellectual community are investigated, revealing an open-minded Dublin community. In addition to being a representative Renaissance activity, translation was harnessed in the country as an 'instrument of state', as shown by translations of Gaelic poetry. The Renaissance literary production in Dublin had a multi-linguistic character with Latin orations taking place in the Trinity College Dublin. The book also addresses the question of whether the English-language drama composed and staged in Restoration Dublin is most accurately described as Anglo-Irish drama or 'English drama written in Ireland'.
will offer a stylistic analysis that sets these texts in their historical and literary context as a contribution to understanding Dublin’s profile as a Renaissance city of literature and learning.5 The use of the term ‘Renaissance’ in this context requires some explanation. For the most part the Latin writings of seventeenth-century scholars are composed in a style that aims at competency and clarity rather than literary accomplishment; oratory, however, is a case apart.6 Latin orations 4 In particular, I have chosen not to discuss here the orations of James
Herbert was a political as well as a religious poet. This chapter explores the common thread of peace that runs through several underexamined texts: George Herbert’s transnational poetic dialogue in Latin verse with Pope Urban VIII, his early Latin poems celebrating the marriage of Frederic V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine to Princess Elizabeth Stuart, his Latin oration at the return of Prince Charles and Lord Buckingham from Spain, and his concluding Communion poems in Lucus. Concluding with a discussion of the French poet Théophile de Viau, whom George’s brother Edward would have encountered in print in Paris, and perhaps also in person through the Duc de Montmorency, the chapter sees the trajectory of George’s career as pivoting in 1624, the culminating moment of his struggle for peace.
.iv, suggesting do Búrc consulted books printed in English.44 Thus, translation gestures to what different linguistic groups were reading and writing, and which books were available to them. Of course, decisions to communicate in a particular language could make specific statements, as with the Latin orations that emerged from Trinity College Dublin. These works were not only intended to convey the university’s philosophy and broader Renaissance ideals, but they carried in their Latin medium the appropriate tenor for their messages. Jason Harris notes that ‘to speak Latin in a
them, etc.’ 17 Nashe now approached his main event. After Harvey concluded his Latin oration ‘by some better friends than he was worthy of [probably the Earl of Leicester] ... he was brought to kiss the Queen’s hand, and it pleased her Highness to say (as in my former book I have cited) that he looked something like an Italian’. 18 The effect on
asked for in her 1592 Latin oration at the University of Oxford). 31 In Seeing Love , Essex uses this maxim again but now gives its power to Elizabeth in a manner that echoes the sonnet-oracle and that prepares the way for Essex’s intimation of the queen’s divine perspective. Essex subtly imbues Elizabeth with God-like perception when the attendant tells Elizabeth that, once she
taceo’ – ‘I see and keep silent’ 22 – and she repeatedly refers to her own uncertainty about whether to speak or to keep silent: in a Latin oration at the University of Oxford in 1566 she began ‘For a long time, truly, a great doubt has held me: Should I be silent or should I speak? If indeed I should speak, I would make evident to you how uncultivated I am in letters; however, if I remain silent my incapacity
their mottoes and crests decorated with their arms. We know specific details about the tokens presented: the Queen received gloves that cost 60s, Burghley's and Leicester's gloves cost 20s each; Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex and Lord Chamberlain, received a pair of gloves valued at 4s 2d. A Latin oration was delivered by the University Orator, Mr Bridgewater of King's College, who held the position for which Harvey was later to apply
humanist scholar, found his way to Scotland in 1528, he was fêted at court, and remained there for three years. James gave a fair degree of shelter and patronage to Scottish scholars as well. It was useful to have such people on hand for important state occasions. In 1537 Sir David Lindsay produced a formal – and carefully politically calibrated – poem mourning the death of the short-lived Queen Madeleine. The following year, he was joined by Sir James Foulis, the King’s Secretary, and Adam Otterburn, the King’s Advocate, in producing formal Latin orations to greet her
further well-known producer of almanacs. 46 Corbett was junior proctor at Oxford, in which capacity he presented a Latin oration in honour of the Prince, published in The Poems of Richard Corbet , ed. Octavius Gilchrist (1807), pp. 249–59. 47 ‘In Poetam