ERITNet SIGNED

Project "ERITNet" data sheet

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 Project objective

This project explores the significance of translations for the transmission of seventeenth-century English republican ideas in the German lands before the revolution of 1848-9. German political thinkers at the time looked at the constitutional models of their European neighbours for inspiration as the territories formerly ruled by the Holy Roman emperors struggled against outdated feudal structures and strove for national identity and unity. The project aims to gather a body of material that gives us an insight into the distribution, dissemination and reception of English republican works in Germany in a variety of languages, including English, Latin and French as well as German to understand the way in which ideas travelled between countries in the form of print. Combining the history of ideas and the material history of the book in innovative ways and taking inspiration from translation studies and social network theory, this project will focus on the way works were translated, edited and rewritten for new contexts and audiences - in this case German society from the later seventeenth century to the Vormärz. Employing Peter Burke’s analytical concept of ‘cultural translation’ the figure of the translator will be assigned a key role as both the reader and first recipient of a work as well as an independent agent able to shape the text in a new language for a new purpose. Particular attention will also be paid to the relationship between translators, editors and political circles. Challenging a largely anglocentric and transatlantic historiography, this transnational and multi-lingual project thus aims to establish the intellectual reach and legacy of the first English Revolution of 1640-60 on the European Continent by focusing on the country that from 1701 had developed an ever closer relationship with England through the Succession Act which established the Hanoverian dynasty on the English throne.