Translation, power and gender in Thomas Hudson’s Judith

Drawing on Translation Studies and gender theory, this article investigates the problematic translation of Bartas’s La Judit (1574) and its assimilation to Jacobean Scotland. Commissioned by James VI, Thomas Hudson’s Historie of Judith (1584) endeavoured to impose a Protestant female behavioural model for ladies at court after the troublesome regency of Marie de Guise and reign of Mary Queen of Scots. By analysing the construction of female identity, femininity and sexuality and by discussing the nearly impossible reconciliation of power and female agency, I shall elucidate the way in which Hudson’s translation operates as an intended vehicle for gender and political domination.