This lecture explores the emergence of the first English Hispanists during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a period marked by intense political, religious and commercial rivalry between England and Spain. Paradoxically, the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) fostered not only fear and hostility toward Spain, but also a growing fascination with the Spanish language and culture. Against this historical backdrop, a group of pioneering English scholars, translators, lexicographers, and language teachers began to publish the first Spanish grammars, dictionaries and dialogues intended for English learners.
Focusing on figures such as John Thorius, Richard Perceval, William Stepney and John Minsheu, the lecture examines their motivations, teaching methods and intellectual legacy. These early works laid the foundations for the teaching of Spanish in England and for the later development of Spanish and English bilingual lexicography. Despite their imperfections and the scarcity of previous models, these publications constitute invaluable linguistic, historical and cultural testimonies that reveal how language learning became intertwined with diplomacy, commerce, espionage, religion and the construction of national identities in early modern Europe.
Speaker: David Carrascosa Cañego (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha. Visiting Research Fellow within the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard, RCCHU)
LOCATION:RCCCHU STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20260611T200000Z DTEND:20260612T035859Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR