Greek literacy in sixteenth-century England

Micha Lazarus*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent scholarship has focused on close engagements with Greek literature in sixteenth-century England, but must still contend with the conventional belief that Elizabethans had negligible Greek. The standard accounts on which this belief is based, however, have not kept pace with the last thirty years of developments in the history of Renaissance education; moreover, they have consistently evaluated Greek literacy by the incommensurate standards of Greek philological scholarship. This review of the multiform evidence of Greek language training in the sixteenth century suggests that Greek literacy was in fact more widespread and advanced in England than has been allowed, and establishes a new baseline and chronology of linguistic access for English readers in the period.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)433-458
Number of pages26
JournalRenaissance Studies
Volume29
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jun 2015
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 The Society for Renaissance Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Keywords

  • education
  • English literature
  • Greek

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Greek literacy in sixteenth-century England'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this