Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Homo Viator: Guillaume de Deguileville's Pèlerinage de vie humaine
- 2 Chivalric Transformations in Fifteenth-Century France
- 3 Stephen Hawes: The Secularised Quest
- 4 Stephen Bateman: The Apocalyptic Quest
- 5 William Goodyear: Everyman's Quest
- 6 Lewes Lewkenor: The Humanist Quest
- 7 Edmund Spenser: The Poetic Quest
- Coda: Reflections on the Unfinished Quest
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Lewes Lewkenor: The Humanist Quest
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Homo Viator: Guillaume de Deguileville's Pèlerinage de vie humaine
- 2 Chivalric Transformations in Fifteenth-Century France
- 3 Stephen Hawes: The Secularised Quest
- 4 Stephen Bateman: The Apocalyptic Quest
- 5 William Goodyear: Everyman's Quest
- 6 Lewes Lewkenor: The Humanist Quest
- 7 Edmund Spenser: The Poetic Quest
- Coda: Reflections on the Unfinished Quest
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Lewes Lewkenor's Resolved Gentleman (1594 – STC 15139) is, like Bateman's Travayled Pylgrime, a translation of Olivier de La Marche's Chevalier délibéré. Unlike Bateman, Lewkenor acknowledges his direct source, Hernando de Acuña's Spanish version, El caballero determinado. Spanish is also the source language of another translation of Lewkenor's, The Spanish Mandevile of Miracles, or, The Garden of Curious Flowers, a juvenile work only published at a later date by Ferdinando Walker (1600 – STC 24135). Lewkenor's ties to Spain are also of a different, more intimate nature: he had spent a number of years in the service of the Spanish Crown during the 1580s, and appears to have cultivated his Spanish sympathies thereafter, despite his return to England. In order to shed light on his translation, it is necessary to read Lewkenor's literary production in parallel with his often perplexing biography. The son of the politician Thomas Lewknor (c. 1538–96), Lewes Lewknor (c. 1560–1627) entered the Middle Temple in 1579. The following year, however, he found himself forced to leave the country due to his Catholicism, and sought refuge in the Netherlands. He then earned a captaincy in Spanish service, but his military career appears to have been cut short by a serious arm injury. Severe financial problems ensued, due to the loss of his pension and litigation over his wife's dowry. These difficulties eventually forced Lewkenor to return to England, seeking a safe conduct through his relative Sir Robert Sidney in 1590.
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- Information
- Allegorical Quests from Deguileville to Spenser , pp. 142 - 164Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012