Aretino Jesuited: an English Translation of the <i>Sette Salmi</i> in Seventeenth‐Century Douai

Abstract This article offers the first focused analysis of John Hawkins's 1635 English rendering Pietro Aretino's Parafrasi sopra i sette salmi della penitenza di David , situating translation within its Catholic and translingual context. Nearly a century after Thomas Wyatt's versified treatment Sette Salmi sequence seven Psalms framed narrative penitent King David, this prose version appeared in Douai, city known for university. I analyse translation's discursive bibliographical elements relation to dynamic book trade supplying England's Catholics with religious texts, particular emphasis on ways dresses rhetoric imaginative contemplation devotional purposes. ‘Contemplate subiect following’, he urges preface reader; his treatments paraphrases' prologues, meanwhile, translator embroiders text emphases both ‘phantasy’ heightened suffering. Though Hawkins never names Aretino explicitly, takes part transnational effort revisit rehabilitate an author commonly Anglophone world, if not more widely Europe, as ‘scourge princes’ scandalous Ragionamenti .