"A Journey to Arcadia: On Translating a Renaissance Italian Classic," a Lecture by Nicholas Jones

Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia was an instant hit in 1504, leading to dozens of editions through the bsixteenth century and translations from Italian into French and Spanish. The pastoral romance set "Arcadia" on the map of Utopian places—leading eventually to many literary imitations and countless town names across the world. Still a classic in Italian circles, the book is often mentioned but little known in English. Nicholas Jones's new translation—only the second translation into English—brings the book to English speakers, with its combination of poetry and prose, beauty and melancholy, and its undercurrent of problems—lovesickness, homesickness, dangerous predators, political upheavals, and death.

Nicholas Jones is Professor Emeritus at Oberlin College, where he taught for over forty years specializing in English literature and its connections with music and the arts. Educated at Harvard, Nick is a scholar, poet, lecturer, reviewer, and translator. His translation of the madrigals of the sixteenth-century Italian poet Giovanni Battista Guarini was published in 2018, and his new translation of Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia was published in 2025, both by the University of Michigan Press.

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