The Time-Travelling Prince: Machiavelli's English Journey

This paper approaches the phenomenon of retranslation (multiple translations of the same original text) from a historical point of view: rather than comparing the actual translations produced, the emphasis will be on outlining the 'genealogy' of different translations over the ages and the contexts in which they were produced. This becomes an area of investigation where theory and empirical historical research come together, raising issues such as censorship, patronage, the role of scholarship with translation's response to new authoritative editions or fresh interpretations of the source text, ideological approaches to translation, the revision of previous translations, the role of paratexts, the commercial considerations of publishing companies, the role played by individual translators and commentators, etc. As a case study, the paper will focus on English-language translations of Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, highlighting some of the circumstances that have led to the publication of over thirty English translations of the sixteenth-century Italian original. The Prince's journey in English, from censored manuscript to contemporary classic of political science and literary studies, reviled and admired by turn, provides a fascinating itinerary through translation history.