The English Emblem Tradition: A theatre for worldlings

Book excerpt: The emblem, occupying a territory bordering literature and fine arts, was long unclaimed by scholars. But recently emblems have become the subject of resurgent interest as a key element in semiotics, communications theory, and the sociology of production and reception. his volume (the first of a series dealing with the English tradition) follows the two devoted to the emblems of Andreas Alciatus in Latin and in the main vernacular translations which comprise volume 1 of the Index Emblematicus. The books indexed in this volume are: Jan van der Noot's A Theatre for Voluptuous Worldlings (London 1569), The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius translated by Samuel Daniel and including Daniel's collection of 'certaine notable devises both militarie and amorous' from Domenichi (liondon 1585), and Geoffrey Whitney's A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises (Leyden 1586). For each, Daly provides an introductory and bibliographic note; facsimilies of the emblems, and with each a description of pictures, translations of mottoes, a list of key words from the epigram, and information on dedicatee, bearer (of impresa), and references; and indexes to the various fields of information which make up each emblem or impresa as a whole. All key words are flagged. The object of this work is identification rather than interpretation. Together with those which will follow, it is an important step toward the establishment of an essential foundation on which to build emblem studies.