John Florio: A Worlde of Wordes
© 2013
A Worlde of Wordes, the first-ever comprehensive Italian-English dictionary, was published in 1598 by John Florio. One of the most prominent linguists and educators in Elizabethan England, Florio was greatly responsible for the spreading of Italian letters and culture throughout educated English society. Especially important was Florio’s dictionary, which – thanks to its exuberant wealth of English definitions – made it initially possible for English readers to access Italy’s rich Renaissance literary and scientific culture.
Award-winning author Hermann W. Haller has prepared the first critical edition of A Worlde of Wordes, which features 46,000 Italian entries – among them dialect forms, erotic terminology, colloquial phrases, and proverbs of the Italian language. Haller reveals Florio as a brilliant English translator and creative writer, as well as a grammarian and language teacher. His helpful critical commentary highlights Florio’s love of words and his life-long dedication to promoting Italian language and culture abroad.
Product Details
- Series: Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library
- Division: Scholarly Publishing
- World Rights
- Page Count: 856 pages
- Dimensions: 7.0in x 1.9in x 10.0in
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Reviews
‘Hermann Haller’s critical edition is a boon to linguistic historians and literary scholars alike.’
Mary Migliozzi
Italica vol 92:02:2015 -
Author Information
Hermann W. Haller is a professor of Italian at Queens College and in the PhD Program of Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was the recipient of the inaugural Modern Language Association Scaglione Publication Award for his book The Other Italy: The Literary Canon in Dialect. -
Table of contents
Introduction
Editorial Criteria
Corrections to the 1598 Printed Version
Bibliography
A Worlde of Wordes
Epistle Dedicatorie
To the Reader
The Names of the Bookes and Auctors
Dictionary
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Subjects and Courses