Milton in Translation

Milton in Translation represents an unprecedented collaboration that demonstrates the breadth of John Milton's international reception, from the seventeenth century through today. This book collects in one volume new essays written on the translation of Milton's works written by an international roster of experts: stalwart and career-long Miltonists, scholars primarily of translation studies, and practitioners who have translated Milton's works. Chapters are grouped geographically but also, by and large, chronologically, given that Milton's works radiated further abroad over time. The chapters on the twenty-three individual languages showcased in this volume are framed by 'Part I: Approaches', consisting of an introduction and two major essays on the global reach and the aural nature of Milton's poetry, and by an epilogue. 'Part II: Influential Translations' features the most influential languages in translations of Milton's works (English, Latin, German, French). Then, accounts of Milton's afterlives in specific languages are provided in 'Part III. Western European and Latin American Translations' (Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Icelandic, Italian, Portuguese, European Spanish, Latin American Spanish), 'Part IV: Central and Eastern European Translations' (Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian/Montenegrin, Serbo-Croatian languages), 'Part V: Middle Eastern Translations' (Arabic, Hebrew, Persian), and 'Part VI: East Asian Translations' (Chinese, Japanese, Korean). The chapters in Parts II through VI include historical and critical context, a brief history of translation in the language, and a case study on any single work or group of Milton's works in translation.

Angelica Duran, Purdue University,Islam Issa, Birmingham City University,Jonathan R. Olson, Grand Canyon University

Angelica Duran is Professor at Purdue University, where she has been on the English and Comparative Literature faculties since earning her Ph.D. in English Literature from Stanford in 2000. She served as Purdue's Director of Religious Studies from 2009 to 2013. She is the editor of A Concise Companion to Milton (2007, pbk. And rev. 2011) and The King James Bible across Borders and Centuries (2014), the co-editor of Mo Yan in Context, and the author of Milton among Spaniards (2020), The Age of Milton and the Scientific Revolution (2007), and more than 40 articles and chapters. Her professional roles include President of the Milton Society of America (2020-21) and editorial board member of Milton Quarterly (2005-).


Islam Issa is Reader in Literature and History at Birmingham City University. He has published on the global and digital reception of early modern English literature,including the award-winning book, Milton in the Arab-Muslim World (2016, pbk. 2019) and Digital Milton (2018, pbk. 2019). He is translating and editing the first Arabic edition of Milton's sonnets and has worked as a simultaneous interpreter of Arabic to English for a range of high-profile figures. Issa has written regularly on Milton for such media outlets as The Guardian and Times Literary Supplement. He is also a regular broadcaster on the BBC, for whom he has presented television and radio documentaries and served as Research Consultant for the BBC Poetry Season episode on Milton.

Jonathan R. Olson is Associate Professor of English at Grand Canyon University, where he teaches in the Honors College. He taught literature and film as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Liverpool and held a Mellon Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Warwick's Centre for the Study of the Renaissance and at the Newberry Library. His research focuses on early modern English literature, book history, and cinema, and he contributed recently to Global Milton and Visual Art (2021) and Essays and Studies (2021). For research on Selling an English Canon: Literary Publishing, 1640-1710, he held bibliographical fellowships at the Beinecke, Clark, Houghton, and Huntington libraries.

Part I Approaches
1. Introduction: From 'Cambalu' to 'El Dorado', Angelica Duran and Islam Issa
2. Milton's Global Reach, Thomas N. Corns
3. Lost and Regained in Translation: The Sound of Paradise Lost, Beverley Sherry
Part II Influential Translations
4. 'Levelling the Sublime': Translating Paradise Lost into English in the Eighteenth Century, Aaron Shapiro
5. 'Translated Verse': Milton's Latin Poetry in the Long Eighteenth Century, Estelle Haan
6. 'Latinizing' Milton: Paradise Lost, Latinitas, and the Long Eighteenth Century, Estelle Haan
7. Domesticating and Foreignizing the Sublime: Paradise Lost in German, Curtis Whitaker
8. 'The French Connection' among French Translations of Milton and within du Bocage's Paradis terrestre, Christophe Tournu
Part III Western European and Latin American Translations
9. Paradise Lost in Dutch, 1728-2003: Form, Politics, Religion, Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen
10. A Vision in Times of Need: Milton in Estonia, Anne Lange
11. Traces of the Birth of the State of Finland in Jylh?'s Translation of Paradise Lost, David Robertson
12. Iceland's Milton: On J?n ?orl?ksson's Translation of Paradise Lost, ?str??ur Eysteinsson
13. 'Censur'd to Be Much Inferiour': Paradise Lost and Regained in Italian, Daniele Borgogni
14. Milton in Portuguese: A Story in Blank Verse, H?lio J.S. Alves
15. Paradise Lost in Spanish Translation and as World Literature, Angelica Duran
16. Either in Prose or Rhyme: Translating Milton in(to) Latin America, Mario Murgia
Part IV Central and Eastern European Translations
17. The Quest for the Right Accent: Milton in Bulgarian Translation, Alexander Shurbanov
18. Jungmann's Translation of Paradise Lost in the Vanguard of Modern Czech Culture, ??rkaTobrmanov?
19. In 'Milton's Prison': Milton in Hungarian Translation, Mikl?s P?ti
20. Translation as Resistance: Three Centuries of Paradise Lost in Polish, Joanna Rzepa
21. Milton in Serbian/Montenegrin: Paradise Lost from behind Bars, Marjan Strojan
22. Milton in Illyria, Marjan Strojan
Part V Middle Eastern Translations
23. Paradise Lost in Arabic: Images, Style, and Technique, Islam Issa
24. Pre-Eminent among Gentiles: Milton's Major Poetry in Hebrew Translations, Noam Reisner
25. Plotting a Persian Paradise: Milton's Iranian Afterlives, Jeffrey Einboden
Part VI East Asian Translations
26. Milton in China 'Yet Once More', Bing Yan
27. Translating Milton's Poetry into Japanese with a Case Study of Samson Agonistes, Hiroko Sano
28. The 1960s and Paradise Lost in Korean, Kim Hae Yeon with Angelica Duran
Epilogue: Multilingual and Multicultural Milton, Gordon Campbell