William Adlington

William Adlington (fl. 1566) was one among the host of translators that made the Elizabethan era the "golden age of translations". His Englishing of Apuleius' second century CE novel "Metamorphoses", better known by its English title "The Golden Ass" (1566, reprinted 1571, 1582, 1596) [Under the title "The XI Bookes of the Golden Asse, Conteininge the Metamorphosie of Lucius Apuleius" (London 1566). ] was its first appearance in English and has been steadily reprinted into the twentieth century. ["The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche" is an excerpt from it.] His prose is bold and delightful, though he does not stick as close to his source as a modern translator would be expected to do. The book was a favourite source of Shakespeare's. [Borrowings even in the tragedies were demonstrated in detail by John J. M. Tobin, in Kenneth Muir, ed. "Shakespeare and the Classical World" (Shakespeare Survey 31) Cambridge University Press, 1978, and, for "A Midsummer Night's Dream", by James A. S. McPeek, "The Psyche Myth and A Midsummer Night's Dream" "Shakespeare Quarterly" 23.1 (Winter 1972:69-79). See also Robert H. F. Carver," The Protean Ass: The 'Metamorphoses' of Apuleius from Antiquity to the Renaissance" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). ] He addressed his dedication to Thomas, Earl of Sussex, from "University College in Oxenford", but so little is known of him that he did not rate a "vita" in the "Dictionary of National Biography". A connection with the Adlington family of Cheshire is unproven.

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*worldcat id|id=lccn-n85-296831
*gutenberg author|id=William_Adlington|name=William Adlington