Negotiating Florio's A Worlde of Wordes

Abstract

ARTICLES Negotiating Florio's A Worlde of Wordes David O. Frantz festes dies anniversarius quadrigentesimus Introduction With the exception of the work of Frances Yates in the 1930s, John Florio has received scant scholarly attention. The few studies that have been devoted to Florio have focused on highly specialized topics, whether on the art of Elizabethan translation, Renaissance dictionarymaking , or the relationship of England and Italy in the Renaissance. My own earlier work on Florio has been no exception to this rule. This continued neglect ofFlorio is all the more curious, given recent trends in Renaissance scholarship, particularly new historicism, with its emphasis on "cultural poetics," "social energy," and models "based on negotiation and exchange."1 My purpose here is not to provide a new his1 1 am thinking primarily of the work of scholars like Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions The Wonder of the New World 1991, Shakespearean Negotiations 1988, and Renaissance Self-FashioningFrom More to Shakespeare 1980; Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgresnon 1986; Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, ed., Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism 1985; David Kastan, "Proud Majesty Made a Subject: Shakespeare and the Spectacle of Rule" 1986; Theodore Leinwand, "Negotiation and New Historicism " 1990; and Annabel Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modern England 1984. While the limitations of the new historicism seem to me at least as problematic as those of the old historicism, there can be little doubt that it has compelled us to ask new questions and examine many a time-honored assumption. See particularly Leinwand 479 and Greenblatt 1988, 5. It is also a fact that anyone who works with a figure like John Florio is always aware of how as researchers we depend on the painstaking work ofgenerations ofbiographers, and of course, lexicographers, whatever their theoretical biases. David O. Frantz toricist reading of Florio's life and work; rather, it is to acknowledge that such approaches with their emphases on "points of intersection" between the court and the people, for example, and "negotiation" among different worlds and value systems, suggest particular perspectives that sharpen a more traditional examination of Florio's work, especially his Italian-English dictionary of 1598, A Worlde ofWordes (WW). If ever there was a work based on true negotiation, a process perceived by its maker with a clarity that any new historicist might envy, it is Florio 's dictionary. By negotiation I mean primarily "coping with," "success in accomplishing" (to use contemporary dictionary meanings). In Florio's case I see negotiation as the process by which he "coped with" different social classes that were central to his success, which means as well the "business" or monetary conditions under which he produced his work. Negotiation also has the connotation of maneuvering, and I believe that such a connotation applies here, particularly in Florio's ability to define different cultures through a dual-language dictionary .2 A Worlde of Wordes brings into focus critical points of social, economic , cultural, and, specifically, linguistic intersection and exchange in a telling fashion. My aim in this paper is to illuminate Florio's clear sense of working in such a context. Indeed, if there is a quintessential figure of intersection and negotiation at the end of the 16th century, it isJohn Florio. The complexities and engagement with multiple worlds and identities are apparent on every page. Though Florio was born in England, he was a "foreigner" by name and association. Florio was employed by the French ambassador but probably served as an agent for Walsingham (and hence Burghley ) . He was a staunch Christian but became associated with the circle of Greville, Raleigh, and Bruno; and while he was a committed Protestant , he proved (in print at least) uncharacteristically tolerant of Roman Catholicism. Finally, he was a tutor to the aristocracy but was not of the aristocracy, and while he was a language instructor, he was not a traditional language schoolmaster. This last point requires amplification . Unlike some of the language teachers in Renaissance England, most notably Claude de Sainliens (Hollyband), Florio did not establish 2 Florio defines negotiare as "to exercise, to negotiate, to deale, to occupie, to emploie, to...

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