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Neo-Latin Studies Seminar Programme Easter Term 2016

Cambridge Society for Neo-Latin Studies Easter Term 2016
 

5.30pm in the Junior Parlour, T Blue Boar, Trinity College

 

THURSDAY 12th MAY

Maya Feile Tomes (Cambridge), 'Redeeming the Torrid Zone: centres, peripheries and the terrestrial paradise'

It is well known that inherited European ideas about the so-called "Torrid Zone" underwent major revision in the early modern period after Portuguese and Spanish voyages of the "Age of Discovery" demonstrated once and for all that the Tropics were traversable and even eminently habitable. Less attention, however, has been paid to the continuation and use of the term and its referent(s) within the early modern poetic tradition. In this paper, I will consider the topos and its manifestations in Ibero-American poetry, in – and at the intersection of – the Iberian Neo-Latin and vernacular traditions, arguing for the trope as a significant and hitherto under-appreciated feature of early modern Iberian poetics in general, and, in particular, as a figure in itself of the radical revisionism of the post-1492 world.

 

THURSDAY 19th MAY

Victoria Moul (King's College London), 'Andrew Marvell and Payne Fisher'

This paper explores the extensive but largely unremarked areas of overlap between Andrew Marvell's political poetry of the 1650s and the Latin poetry of Payne Fisher, Cromwell's forgotten laureate. Focusing in particular on shared imagery, and drawing upon unpublished manuscript material as well as Fisher's extensive printed poetry, it explores the implications for these connections in terms of the chronology of Marvell's work, and the direction of influence between Marvell and Fisher; and also as evidence more generally for the shared reading practices of those authors working closely together in the years of the Commonwealth and Cromwellian Protectorate - a group which included John Milton and Marchamont Nedham as well as Marvell and Fisher. A handout will be provided with all Latin translated and all students and scholars with interests in this period are very welcome, whether or not they have any Latin.

 

All are welcome. Wine is served during the discussion of the papers.

For other inquiries, please contact Andrew Taylor at awt24@cam.ac.uk. See also the Neo-Latin News and Events pages.

Sponsored by the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages