Professor John Stone of the University of Barcelona has discovered that in 1765, the English scholar John Preston of the English College in Lisbon wrote to John Sheppard, the college's London agent, requesting that two copies of Shakespeare's Othello be sent to Lisbon. What does this signify you may ask - John Stone told The Portugal News: “In the eighteen century Shakespeare was becoming a cultural icon, but educated individuals generally knew French and for speakers of romance languages French is generally easier, so what you would expect was to find French translations of Shakespeare. To find that the first Shakespeare to reach Portugal is in English is a bit of a surprise.”


John Stone undertook a month's fellowship back in 2022 at the archive in Ushaw College in Durham, England where he had access to all documents from the English College in Lisbon which have been kept there since 1973, the year the college closed down. “I was going through English college correspondence looking for documentation that was relevant for the growth of the collection at the Lisbon College’s library - a process called library formation.” Stone was going through the Lisbon College books and analysing the material they were made of, if they were left behind, donated, or ordered, and getting an overall perspective of how much control there was over the importing process of books in English, according to previous archivists' descriptions. “I got some idea of who was most involved in building up the library, and then I read as much of the correspondence as I could”, he revealed.


Othello


These findings follow a previous discovery made by Stone back in 2000 when he learned that the Shakespeare play The Two Noble Kinsmen had made its way to Spain around 1640. According to his recent research, which he shared in March 2024, two copies of Othello, which were sent from London to Lisbon in 1765, are the first known Shakespeare plays to have entered Portugal. As Stone explains “What you would expect in a century in which French was the Lingua Franca, is that French copies of Shakespeare's work would circulate more widely than copies in English.” Therefore, John Preston’s request for these English books for Portuguese readers means that “Either they were collecting books in English as trophies, or they were collecting the books because they wanted to read them – the latter hypothesis being the more likely”.


John Preston was a Londoner who was sent to Merchant Taylors’ School, one of the ancient English public schools near London, at the same time that Shakespeare was becoming canonical, which meant that before moving to Portugal, he was already familiar with Shakespeare’s work. Stone believes that this library in Portugal developed into a “place where you could go to have access to books in English which wasn’t open to the general public, but if you knew the right people then you would probably have access to it”. As the academic explains, what this means for Shakespeare in Portugal is that concepts related to the play are not only coming in through a French interpretation but are also being interpreted directly through reading in English.


As for why these non-native English speakers knew the language, Dr. John Stone points to two distinct explanations. One benefit of having reading proficiency in English during a time when English censorship was loosening is that many English-language books managed to evade state and church control because the Holly Office (the Inquisition) did not frequently have many people around who could read in the language. Furthermore, individuals naturally have a passion for learning about one another and their countries, and English and Scottish exiles throughout Europe formed friendships in their local communities. “Preston apparently had a very similar role in the English college in Portugal,” Stone said, adding that one of Preston’s teaching fellows was himself half Portuguese, so he would have certainly “played a role in bridging the two languages and cultures”.


Stone's interest lies in Diasporic Communities and how these feel about canon formation, by other words he is “Interested in people reading and circulating books and magazines in English, especially if those people are themselves English, Irish or Scottish Catholics who fled their homelands and made lives for themselves in a Catholic country, were they would not be persecuted.” According to him, communities play a crucial role in the crossover between cultures and languages which facilitates contact and familiarity. In summary, the research findings indicate that Portugal was receptive to new concepts and the English language. “It's also, as a milestone, the first evidence of Shakespeare plays in the Lusophone world”, he claimed.

Author

After studying Journalism for five years in the UK and Malta, Sara Durães moved back to Portugal to pursue her passion for writing and connecting with people. A ‘wanderluster’, Sara loves the beach, long walks, and sports. 

Sara J. Durães