Thomas Shelton (translator)

Not to be confused with Thomas Shelton (stenographer).

Thomas Shelton (fl. 1604–1620) was a translator of Don

Quixote. Shelton's translation of the first part of the novel
into English was published in London in 1612. It was the
first translation into any language.

Life

Shelton was a Roman Catholic from Dublin. He may have

been educated in Spain, where a 'Thomas Shelton,
Dublinensis' was listed as a student in Salamanca.[1]

Shelton's activities in Ireland brought him to the attention

of the English intelligence service. He seems to have been
employed in carrying letters to persons in England from
Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam at Dublin Castle. However,
evidence emerged that he was hostile to the English
crown: a letter was intercepted in which he offered his
services to Florence MacCarthy, who was seeking to
arrange a military intervention by the king of Spain. (The
Spanish sent an expedition to Kinsale, Ireland in 1601.)

In 1600 a spy reported that Shelton and one Richard

Nugent were at the headquarters of the Irish rebel
Tyrone.[2] Shelton and Nugent were reported to be
planning to travel to Scotland, but they changed their
destination to Spain. Whether they arrived in Spain is not
clear as they both ended up in Flanders. Nugent was to
claim he left Ireland because he was neglected in love,
publishing Cynthia, containing direfull sonnets, madrigalls
and passionate intercourses, describing his repudiate
affections expressed in loves owne language.[1][3]

Shelton's dedication of his major literary work to

Theophilus Howard has led to speculation as to the
connection between them. The Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography suggests they could have met in the
Low Countries in 1610. Another suggestion is that the
connection was via Lady Suffolk, Theophilus' mother.
According to Alexander T. Wright, in a paper published in
October 1898, Lady Suffolk had three relatives bearing the
name Thomas Shelton, and the author may therefore have
been related. Moreover, Lady Suffolk received money from
the King of Spain on the recommendation of the Spanish
ambassador.[4] She was of interest to the Spanish because
of her perceived influence on the Earl of Salisbury.

Shelton at one time hoped to obtain a pardon from the

English authorities, but so far as is known spent his final
years on the continent where he became a Franciscan.[1]

The life of Thomas Shelton inspired the biographical novel

Behind the Tapestry by Lenny McGee, now translated and
published in Italian as Dietro l'arazzo by Coazinzola
Press.[5]

Publications

Cover of Thomas Shelton's 1620 translation

of Don Quixote

Shelton's first publication was a poem in Cynthia (London

1604), a book of lyric verse mentioned above in which the
author, Nugent, included several pieces by his friends.
Shelton wrote a sonnet prefixed to the Restitution of
Decayed Intelligence (Antwerp 1605) of Richard Verstegan.

The Quixote translation

In the dedication of The History of the Valorous and Wittie

Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha (1612) he
explains to his patron, Lord Howard de Walden, afterwards
2nd Earl of Suffolk",[6]:xxxiii–xxxiv that he "Translated some
five or six yeares agoe, The Historie of Don-Quixote, out of
the Spanish tongue, into the English ... in the space of
forty daies: being therunto more than half enforced,
through the importunitie of a very deere friend, that was
desirous to understand the subject."[6]:3

As source, Shelton did not use either of the authorized

1605 editions of the First Part of Cervantes' masterpiece,
but an edition published in Brussels, in the Spanish
Netherlands, in 1607.[6]:xxx–xxxiii Shelton's translation of the
First Part of the novel was published while Cervantes was
still alive. On the appearance of the Brussels imprint of the
Second Part of Don Quixote in 1616, the year of
Cervantes's death, Shelton translated that also into
English, completing his task in 1620, and printing at the
same time a revised edition of the First Part.

His performance has become a classic among English

translations for its racy, spirited rendering of the original,
but has been faulted by translators such as John Ormsby
(who had a fondness for it), for being so literal that certain
words and phrases are completely mistranslated.
("Gustos", for example, means "delights" or "likings", but
Shelton renders it as "gusts", and "dedos", which literally
means "fingers", is rendered as such by Shelton, although
the word can also mean "inches", which is the way
Cervantes intends it.) Ormsby states, in his introduction to
his own 1885 translation, that Shelton failed to recognize
that a Spanish word can have more than one shade of
meaning, and accuses Shelton of not having had a good
knowledge of Spanish. In his introduction to the Tudor
Translations (1896) reprint of Shelton's translations, James
Fitzmaurice-Kelly sees the performance otherwise:
"Shelton's title to remembrance is based upon the
broadest grounds. He had no sympathy for the arid
accuracy that juggles with a gerund or toys with the
crabbed subjunctive. From the subtleties of syntax, as
from the bonds of prosody he sallies free; and the owls of
pedantry have bitterly resented his arrogant disdain for
them and theirs. And they have sought to avenge
themselves, after their manner, by reproaching him with
taking a disjunctive for an interjection, and with
confounding of predicate and subject. They act after their
kind. But Shelton's view of his function was ampler and
nobler than the hidebound grammarian's. He appeals to
the pure lover of literature; and as a man of letters he
survives."[6]:xlii

Both parts of Shelton's Don Quixote are available in

Fitzmaurice-Kelly's 4-volume reprint for the Tudor
Translations (1896) , which itself was reprinted by AMS
Press in 1967,[6] and the First Part was also included in
the famous Harvard Classics; the translation of the
complete novel is reproduced in Macmillan's "Library of
English Classics" with an introduction by A. W. Pollard,
who incorporates the suggestions made by A. T. Wright in
his Thomas Shelton, Translator.

Shelton's Don Quixote is available online from Project

Gutenberg.[7]

References

Last edited 5 months ago by Fadesga

RELATED ARTICLES

Don Quixote
novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervante…

Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk

English Earl

James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
British writer

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless otherwise

noted.

Terms of Use • Privacy • Desktop