Harvard U. Press launches new series of Medieval reprints

[Langdell]

In 2011, Harvard University Press celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the Loeb Classical Library, the renowned series that presents accessible editions of ancient texts with English translations on the facing page. The covers of the Loebs—red for Latin literature, green for Greek—have become iconic, and generations of students and readers have found them the ideal way to access our classical heritage. In 2001, the press (HUP) launched a new series on the Loeb model, the I Tatti Renaissance Library, featuring Latin and vernacular texts from the fourteenth century and after. But between the latest Loeb—the works of the Venerable Bede, the English chronicler who lived in the seventh century c.e.—and the earliest I Tatti volume, there was a seven-century gap, representing an era of European history that is all too easily neglected: the Middle Ages. …

Clearly, the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (DOML) has its work cut out for it. Launched last year by HUP under the general editorship of Porter professor of Medieval Latin Jan Ziolkowski, DOML gives the Loeb treatment to classic texts from the Middle Ages, aiming to fill the gap between the ancient world and the Renaissance—both on the library shelves and, if possible, in the minds of students and readers (see “A Renaissance for Medieval Classics,” November-December 2010, page 64). “For reasons both economic and cultural,” Ziolkowski writes, “the variety and distinction of the Latin literature written in the Middle Ages have yet to receive the recognition they merit….[M]y dream is that this series of publications will help to improve the situation by furnishing prospective readers with both well-known classics and lesser-known mysteries and masterpieces.”

Whole article here: harvardmagazine.com/2012/01/mysteries-and-masterpieces

So far, about 8 titles are available, including The Rule of St. Benedict: amazon.com/Saint-Benedict-Dumbarton-Medieval-Library/dp/0674053044/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325251577&sr=1-1

The series also will include the complete Vulgate, in 6 volumes. The first 3-4 volumes of the Vulgate are already out.

Each book has the original language on the left-hand page and the corresponding English translation on the right-hand page.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Very interesting. I may buy the Vulgate.

 

[FrancisB]

I suppose using the Douay-Rheims translation is less expensive way to go, but I must admit I’d be interested in what would come of a new scholarly translation of the Vulgate, considering the D-R is 400 years old.

 

[Langdell]

I have volume III now of the Vulgate set and have been working my way through Proverbs. The series preface explains that, for the English translation, they’ve used an 1899 edition of the Challoner version of the Douay-Rheims Bible.

I’m finding that this was actually a good choice, because the D-R is a very literal translation of the Vulgate, something I’d never realized before. Thus, while the D-R may not be so good for reading on its own, it’s great as an aid in understanding the Latin.