Translatio Scientiae: Chaucer, the Astrolabe, and Making English Scientific
Keynote Address by Elly R. Truitt
Given at Translating Science: 15th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, on November 10, 2023
Abstract: In his Treatise on the Astrolabe (one of the earliest examples of an English scientific text), Chaucer engages simultaneously in two kinds of translation— translating a text (or group of texts) from one language to another, and translating highly specialized knowledge into a form that could be more easily understood by non-specialists. These two simultaneous translations are linked to one another by the use of the reader persona of “litel Lewis,” Chaucer’s ten-year old son. Chaucer uses Lewis as the ideal audience (or reader) in order to communicate both aspects of his translation— the language and the knowledge of the astrolabe and its uses. Throughout the treatise, Chaucer consciously signals his work as translator of text and of scientific practice by using repetition, metaphor, simple language, and the instrument itself.
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I examine how Chaucer’s vocabularies—whether translated or adopted—offer new possibilities for using English as a language for scientific knowledge and for articulating and even creating new communities of scientific readers and practitioners. I explore how Chaucer articulates and emphasizes experience, a concept taken from thirteenth-century natural philosophy, as a necessary component of acquiring natural knowledge: using the astrolabe is as important as reading about it. I demonstrate that at the same time that he maintains the centrality of experiential knowledge to understanding nature, Chaucer also argues for English as a scientific language, ultimately suggesting that the concept of experience and the role of the English language in scientific inquiry are linked.
Elly R. Truitt is an associate professor in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies the circulation of scientific knowledge and objects throughout Christendom and Islamdom in the long medieval period. You can also follow her on X/Twitter @MedievalRobots
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Top Image: So-called Chaucer Astrolabe dated 1326, similar to the one Chaucer describes, British Museum – photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY 2.5
Translatio Scientiae: Chaucer, the Astrolabe, and Making English Scientific
Keynote Address by Elly R. Truitt
Given at Translating Science: 15th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, on November 10, 2023
Abstract: In his Treatise on the Astrolabe (one of the earliest examples of an English scientific text), Chaucer engages simultaneously in two kinds of translation— translating a text (or group of texts) from one language to another, and translating highly specialized knowledge into a form that could be more easily understood by non-specialists. These two simultaneous translations are linked to one another by the use of the reader persona of “litel Lewis,” Chaucer’s ten-year old son. Chaucer uses Lewis as the ideal audience (or reader) in order to communicate both aspects of his translation— the language and the knowledge of the astrolabe and its uses. Throughout the treatise, Chaucer consciously signals his work as translator of text and of scientific practice by using repetition, metaphor, simple language, and the instrument itself.
I examine how Chaucer’s vocabularies—whether translated or adopted—offer new possibilities for using English as a language for scientific knowledge and for articulating and even creating new communities of scientific readers and practitioners. I explore how Chaucer articulates and emphasizes experience, a concept taken from thirteenth-century natural philosophy, as a necessary component of acquiring natural knowledge: using the astrolabe is as important as reading about it. I demonstrate that at the same time that he maintains the centrality of experiential knowledge to understanding nature, Chaucer also argues for English as a scientific language, ultimately suggesting that the concept of experience and the role of the English language in scientific inquiry are linked.
Elly R. Truitt is an associate professor in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies the circulation of scientific knowledge and objects throughout Christendom and Islamdom in the long medieval period. You can also follow her on X/Twitter @MedievalRobots
Top Image: So-called Chaucer Astrolabe dated 1326, similar to the one Chaucer describes, British Museum – photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY 2.5
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