This paper examines the first translation of The Prince into a Nordic language, Carl von Klingenberg’s Machiavels Prins (1757), published together with the translation of The Anti-Machiavel by Frederick II of Prussia. Klingenberg was a typical Enlightenment Voltairian intellectual of the Swedish “Age of Liberty”; he was cousin of the poetess Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht and member of the Tankebyggarorden – the first literary society in Sweden. The book was dedicated to the eleven-year-old Crown Prince Gustaf, the future king Gustavus III and nephew of Frederick II of Prussia. As Klingenberg himself declares, he translated The Prince above all from a French version (Amelot’s edition of 1686 or 1689), but it can be shown that he also used two German translations (one of them was the obscure Lebens- und Regierungs-Maximen eines Fursten) and Dacres’ English version (1640).
The first translation in Scandinavia
MARELLI, PAOLO
2010-01-01
Abstract
This paper examines the first translation of The Prince into a Nordic language, Carl von Klingenberg’s Machiavels Prins (1757), published together with the translation of The Anti-Machiavel by Frederick II of Prussia. Klingenberg was a typical Enlightenment Voltairian intellectual of the Swedish “Age of Liberty”; he was cousin of the poetess Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht and member of the Tankebyggarorden – the first literary society in Sweden. The book was dedicated to the eleven-year-old Crown Prince Gustaf, the future king Gustavus III and nephew of Frederick II of Prussia. As Klingenberg himself declares, he translated The Prince above all from a French version (Amelot’s edition of 1686 or 1689), but it can be shown that he also used two German translations (one of them was the obscure Lebens- und Regierungs-Maximen eines Fursten) and Dacres’ English version (1640).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.