Glossing The Shepheardes Calender in Latin Translation

Abstract

This article examines two Latin translations of The Shepheardes Calender by John Dove (1584) and Theodore Bathurst ( c.1602) respectively. It explores their versions of three aspects of Spenserian pastoral (all prominent in E.K.'s gloss): community and competition; allegory and allusion; register and rusticity. Throughout, it argues for the influence of translation theory on the translations and The Shepheardes Calender. It revises misinformation about the translations, demonstrating that Dove's translation influenced Bathurst's and that Bathurst's is collectively authored. It explores the way in which the translations ‘re-allegorize’ the Calender and reproduce Spenser's rustic style. While Bathurst's translation reveals an interest in Spenser's experience of patronage and poetic career, Dove attends to the poem's religious allegory, political significance, and linguistic agenda, ultimately using his translation to allude to the public disputations of Edmund Campion. Rather than ‘missing the point’ of Spenser's vernacular achievement, the translations extend the remit of Spenserian pastoral.