Article published In:
Tangible translation: Migration and materialityEdited by Andrea Ciribuco and Anne O’Connor
[Translation and Interpreting Studies 17:1] 2022
► pp. 14–41
Edited by Andrea Ciribuco and Anne O’Connor
[Translation and Interpreting Studies 17:1] 2022
► pp. 14–41
‘Hospitality to this German stranger’
Printed translations and German-speaking exiles in mid-seventeenth-century Britain
The article examines religious translations associated with communities of German-speaking refugees in mid-seventeenth-century Britain, namely: a mystical treatise circulating among the non-conformist Family of Love, and the writings of Jacob Böhme, which enjoyed a surprisingly wide reception in English print. The discussion focuses on the textual-material features of these texts, as they represent tangible traces of the activities of seventeenth-century networks connecting German-speaking exiles, English translators, and their many intermediaries. The printed books record the circulation of those texts across dissident communities, but also their passage from clandestine manuscripts to widely-distributed printed texts, and the transformations that accompany their dissemination on the English book market. By examining together the discursive, textual, and material features of these translations, this essay foregrounds the importance of combining descriptive translation studies and book studies as complementary approaches when documenting early modern histories of cultural transfer, displacement and exile.
Keywords: translation history, book history, paratexts, religious translation, hospitality, exile
Article outline
- Introduction
- Translation as hospitality: The case of Theologia Deutsch (1646–48)
- Tangible transfers: The Teutonicus Philosophus in English print
- Conclusion
- Notes
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References
References
Primary sources
Anon
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1558 Theologia Germanica. Libellus aureus: hoc est, brevis & praegnans: quomodo sit exuendus vetus homo, induendusque novus. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin.
1558 La théologie germanique ; livret auquel est traité comment il faut dépouiller le vieil homme et vestir le nouveau. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin.
1590 Theologia Germanica: een gulden handtboecxken inhoudende hoemen den ouden mensche moet uutdoen, ende den nieuwen aendoen. Antwerp: at the shop of Christophe Plantin, by widow Van Moerentow.
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1714 Bibliotheca Furliana, sive Catalogus Librorum Benjamin Furli, inter quos excellunt Bibliorum Editiones, Myftici Libri proprii cujuscumque Sectæ Chriſtianæ, & Manuſcripti membranei. Rotterdam: apud Fritsch et Bohm.
Böhme, Jacob
1647 XL. questions concerning the soule· Propounded by Dr. Balthasar Walter· And answered, by Jacob Behmen. Aliàs Teutonicus Philosophus. And in his answer to the first question is the turned eye, or, philosophick globe. (Which in it selfe containeth all mysteries) with an exposition of it. VVritten in the Germane language. Anno. 1620. London: Matthew Simmons for Humphrey Blunden.
1649a Mercurius Teutonicus; or A Christian information concerning the last times. Being divers propheticall passages of the fall of Babel, and the new building in Zion. / Gathered out of the mysticall writings of that famous Germane author, Jacob Behmen, aliàs, Teutonicus Phylosophus. London: Matthew Simmons for Humphrey Blunden.
1649b The epistles of Jacob Behman, aliter, Teutonicus philosophus very usefull and necessary for those that read his writings, and are very full of excellent and plaine instructions how to attaine to the life of Christ / translated out of the German. London: Matthew Simmons.
1650 The third booke of the authour, being The high and deepe searching out of the threefold life of man through (or according to) the three principles by Jacob Behmen, aliàs Teutonicus Philosophus ; written in the Germane language, anno 1620; Englished by J. Sparrovv. London: Matthew Simmons for Humphrey Blunden.
1652 Of Christs testaments, viz. baptisme and the Supper written in two bookes … : set forth from the true theosophicall ground through the three principles of the divine revelation, and presented to the children of God for the information of their understandings / written in the yeare of Christ 1624, by Jacob Behm …, alias, Teutonicus Philosophus ; and Englished by John Sparrovv. London: Matthew Simmons.
1654 A consolatory treatise of the four complexions, that is, an instruction in the time of temptation for a sad and assaulted heart shewing where-from sadness naturally ariseth, and how the assaulting happeneth : hereto are annexed some consolatory speeches exceeding profitable for the assaulted hearts & souls, written … March 1621 / by the Teutonicall philosopher, Jacob Behmen. London: T. W. for Humphrey Blunden.
1656 Aurora, that is, the day-spring, or dawning of the day in the Orient, or morning-rednesse in the rising of the sun, that is, the root or mother of philosophie, astrologie, & theologie from the true ground, or a description of nature … all this set down diligently from a true ground in the knowledge of the spirit, and in the impulse of God / by Jacob Behme, Teutonick philosopher … London: John Streater for Giles Calvert.
Croese, Gerard
1696 The general history of the Quakers containing the lives, tenents, sufferings, tryals, speeches and letters of the most eminent Quakers, both men and women : from the first rise of that sect down to this present time / being written originally in Latin by Gerard Croese ; to which is added a letter writ by George Keith … London: Printed for John Dunton.
Luther, Martin
1652 Dris Martini Lutheri colloquia mensalia, or, Dr. Martin Luther’s divine discourses at his table, etc. which in his life time hee held with divers learned men (…) collected first together by Dr. Antonius Lauterbach, and afterward disposed into certain common places by John Aurifaber … ; translated out of the high Germane into the English tongue, by Capt. Henrie Bell. London: Martin du Gard.
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