Gascoigne’s The Spoyle of Antwerpe (1576) as an Anglo-Dutch text

Abstract

The Spoyle of Antwerpe (1576) by the English soldier poet George Gascoigne is considered both a major source on the Sack of Antwerp that took place in that same year, and a primordial example of Renaissance autobiographical writing. The finding that Gascoigne copied most of the text of his so-called witness report from a Dutch pamphlet undermines both these assumptions. As an Anglo-Dutch text, the Spoyle becomes an exciting example of cultural translation between England and the Low Countries, demonstrating how parts of an anonymous Dutch pamphlet were converted into an autobiographical English text.