Family Name: Le Fèvre
First Name: Anne
Birth Date: 1644
Birth Place: Grandchamp
Death Date: Fri, Aug 16, 1720
Death Place: Paris
Main places of activity:
Place From To
Paris 1671 1682
Place From To
Castres 1682 1685
Place From To
Paris 1682 1719
Personal info:
Education

Showing a natural inclination for the study of ancient Greek, Anne was educated by the dominating figure of her father Tanneguy Le Fèvre, a classical scholar and philologist who taught Greek and Latin at the Protestant academy in Saumur.

Le Fèvre always showed her devotion towards her father by signing her first translations Anna Tanaquilli Fabri filiae.
Career

Le Fèvre's career as a classicist started right after her father's death, when the theologian and royal tutor Pierre-Daniel Huet convinced her to move to Paris to collaborate on the book series of Latin classics Huet supervised ad usum Delphini. Lefèvre edited four volumes out of the sixty-four issued for the Delphin editions (see other writings).

At the same time, Le Fèvre started her long-lasting activity as a professional translator in 1674, which ended with her monumental work on Homer in 1716.
Financial Situation

In 1680, Lefèvre wasn't satisfied with her wage as co-editor, to the point of complaining with Huet about it.

It is likely Lefèvre has undertaken the translation of classical texts in French vernacular as a way to increase her earnings.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

As a translator, Le Fèvre maintains the rigorous approach of Renaissance humanists, believing in the superiority of classical models over contemporary literature. This perspective led her to choose prose over poetry when translating Latin or Greek verse into vernacular French, to convey the most exact meaning of her sources without renouncing formal elegance. Faithful to René Le Bossu's and Aristotle's sets of rules for epic narrative, Le Fèvre defends the use of metaphors and allegories to reflect higher moral truths, against the rationalising tendencies of Cartesian philosophy. When translating the heroic exploits of the past, Le Fèvre admittedly actualised the relevance of classical examples to modern society, for instance drawing parallels between the values contained in Homer's poems and the precepts of the Bible. Le Fèvre often found in her préfaces the space to address contemporary issues: the translation of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, for instance, intervenes in the debates on religious toleration after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes forced Lefèvre and her husband to leave Paris.

Le Fèvre met an extraordinary success, her clear translations being reprinted in Paris, Lyon and Amsterdam several times during the eighteenth century and, in the case of her version of Homer, becoming classics themselves until 1817. Her work as a cultural mediator and translator between the ancient and modern worlds contributed greatly to the dissemination of Latin and Greek classics in France: as she put it herself, "je n'écris pas pour les savants qui lisent Homère en sa langue; ils le connoissent mieux que moy: j'écris pour ceux qui ne le conoissent point, c'est à dire, pour le plus grand nombre" (preface to the Iliad). Alexander Pope made use of Le Fèvre's translation of the Iliad to prompt his own (1715), also importing some of the terms of the querelle d'Homère on the other side of the Channel (see other writings).

Despite the fact that her traditionalist attitude led several scholars to label her as an austere ideological defender of the ancients against modernity, Le Fèvre profited from the transformations that French society was undergoing, which gradually accepted women as part of the cultural conversations of the salons and epistolary exchanges of the république des lettres.

secondary bibliography references

Fern Farnham, Madame Dacier: Scholar and Humanist, Angel Press, 1976.​

Emmanuel Bury, 'Madame Dacier', in Femmes savantes, savoirs de femmes: Du crépuscule de la Renaissance à l’aube des Lumières, ed. by Colette Navitel, Droz, 1999, 209-20.

Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, ed., La Collection Ad usum Delphini. L’Antiquité au miroir du Grand Siècle, ELLUG/Université Stendhal, 2000.

Fabienne Moore, 'Homer Revisited: Anne Le Fèvre Dacier’s Preface to Her Prose Translation of the Iliad in Early Eighteenth-Century France', Studies in the Literary Imagination, 33, n°2 (2000), 87-107.

Bruno Garnier, “Anne Dacier, un esprit moderne au pays des anciens,” in Portraits de traductrices, ed. by Jean Delisle, Presse universitaire d’Ottawa and Artois Presse universitaire, 2002, 13-54.

Julie Candler Hayes, 'Of Meaning and Modernity: Anne Dacier and the Homer Debate', in Strategic Rewriting, ed. by David Lee Rubin, Rookwood, 2002, 173-95.

Richard Morton, Examining Changes in the Eighteenth-Century French Translations of Homer’s Iliad by Anne Dacier and Houdar de La Motte, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003.

Marie-Pierre Krück, Poétique de la corruption chez Anne Dacier, Laval, Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2009.

Serena Cannavale, 'L'edizione callimachea di Anne Le Fèvre Dacier: gli epigrammi', Atene e Roma n. s. II, VI, 1-2 (2012), 43-60.

Karen Green, 'Early eighteenth-century debates: from Anne Dacier to Catharine Trotter Cockburn', in A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1700–1800, Cambridge University Press, 2014, 14-42.

Helena Taylor, 'Polemical Translation, Translating Polemic: Anne Dacier's Rhetoric in the Homer Quarrel', The Modern Language Review , 116, n°1 (January 2021), 21-41.

John J. Conley, 'Anne Le Fèvre Dacier (1647-1720)', in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, https://www.iep.utm.edu/, 2021.

Translations

  • Epigrams, Hymns and Fragments

  • Translation Title: ΚΑΛΛΙΜΑΧOY ΚΥΡHΝΑΙOY ΥΜΝOΙ, ΕΠΙΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΛΛΑ ΑΤΤΑ. Callimachi Cyrenaei Hymni, Epigrammata et fragmenta : ejusdem poëmatium De coma Berenices a Catullo versum. Accessere alia ejusdem Epigrammata quaedam nondum in lucem edita ; & fragmenta aliquot in aliis editionibus praetermissa. Adjecta sunt ad Hymnos vetera Scholia Graeca. Adjectus et ad calcem index vocabulorum omnium. Cum notis Annae Tanaquilli Fabri filiae
  • Original Author: Callimachus
  • Original title: Epigrams, Hymns and Fragments
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Note:

    The literary production of Callimachus survived partially, and mostly in fragments.
  • Title: Anthologia Palatina
  • Pub. Year: 0979
  • Lang: Ancient Greek
  • Note:

    Le Fèvre added to her edition of Callimachus some epigrams and fragments never issued before, taken from the Palatine Anthology.

    In the rest of her version, Le Fèvre follows the Latin translations of Henri II Estienne (1531-1598) -- who edited the Anthologia Palnudea in 1566 and published a collection of Callimachus' works in 1577 -- and Bonaventura Vulcanius (1538-1614) -- editor of the 1584 version --, occasionally correcting their choices of words and commenting on possible vernacular translations (Cannavale 2012).


  • Translation: ΚΑΛΛΙΜΑΧOY ΚΥΡHΝΑΙOY ΥΜΝOΙ, ΕΠΙΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΑΛΛΑ ΑΤΤΑ. Callimachi Cyrenaei Hymni, Epigrammata et fragmenta : ejusdem poëmatium De coma Berenices a Catullo versum. Accessere alia ejusdem Epigrammata quaedam nondum in lucem edita ; & fragmenta aliquot in aliis editionibus praetermissa. Adjecta sunt ad Hymnos vetera Scholia Graeca. Adjectus et ad calcem index vocabulorum omnium. Cum notis Annae Tanaquilli Fabri filiae
  • Publisher: Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy
  • N° Editions: 1
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1674
  • Lang: Latin, Greek

  • Anakreontos, kai allōn tinōn lyrikōn poiētōn melē. Anacreontis et aliorum lyricorum aliquot poëtarum odae. In easdem obseruationes

  • Translation Title: Les Poesies d’Anacreon et de Sapho, traduites de Grec en François, avec des Remarques, par Mademoiselle Le Févre
  • Original Author: Anacreon and Sappho
  • Original title: Anakreontos, kai allōn tinōn lyrikōn poiētōn melē. Anacreontis et aliorum lyricorum aliquot poëtarum odae. In easdem obseruationes
  • Publ. Year From: 1555 to:
  • lang: Ancient Greek, Latin
  • Translation: Les Poesies d’Anacreon et de Sapho, traduites de Grec en François, avec des Remarques, par Mademoiselle Le Févre
  • Publisher: Denys Thierry et Claude Barbin
  • N° Editions: 2
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1680
  • Lang: Ancient Greek, French
  • Note:

    Le Fèvre's source for this work is most likely the 1556 editio princeps of Anacreon's and Sappho's works by Henri Estienne, which include 'la traduction Latine dont une partie a esté faite par Henri Estienne & l'autre par Elias Andreas, & qui est celle dont ont ce sert ordinairement' (see Preface). Estienne's edition however included the Anacreontea, a collection of some sixty poems which were falsely attributed to Anacreon at the time.

  • Amphitruo, Rudens, Epidicus

  • Translation Title: Comédies de Plaute, traduites en françois par Mademoiselle Le Févre, avec des Remarques et un Examen selon les Regles du Theatre
  • Original Author: Titus Maccius Plautus
  • Original title: Amphitruo, Rudens, Epidicus
  • lang: Latin
  • Translation: Comédies de Plaute, traduites en françois par Mademoiselle Le Févre, avec des Remarques et un Examen selon les Regles du Theatre
  • Publisher: Denys Thierry & Claude Barbin
  • N° Editions: 3
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1682
  • Lang: Latin, French
  • Note:

    The first edition is in one volume divided in three tomes, each including one comedy: the Amphitryo, the Rudens and the Epidicus. The 1730 edition is in three volumes.

    In the Preface, Le Fèvre tells us that the existing translations of Plautus are awful, so that it is impossible 'qu'une personne raisonnable puisse lire une page sans dégoust'.

  • Νεφέλαι, Πλοῦτος

  • Translation Title: Le Plutus et les Nuées d’Aristophane. Comedies greques traduites en François. Avec des Remarques et un Examen de chaque piece selon les regles du theatre, par Mademoiselle Le Févre
  • Original Author: Aristophanes
  • Original title: Νεφέλαι, Πλοῦτος
  • Publ. Year From: 0422 to: 0407
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: Le Plutus et les Nuées d’Aristophane. Comedies greques traduites en François. Avec des Remarques et un Examen de chaque piece selon les regles du theatre, par Mademoiselle Le Févre
  • Publisher: Denys Thierry & Claude Barbin
  • N° Editions: 3
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1683
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    In the Preface, Le Fèvre claims that she is the first to attempt a translation from the original, but does not tell us what source text she used.

  • Andria, Hecyra, Heauton Timorumenos, Eunuchus, Adelphoe

  • Translation Title: Les Comédies de Térence, traduites en françois, avec des Remarques, Par Madame D***
  • Original Author: Publius Terentius Afer
  • Original title: Andria, Hecyra, Heauton Timorumenos, Eunuchus, Adelphoe
  • Publ. Year From: 0165 to: 0159
  • lang: Latin
  • Translation: Les Comédies de Térence, traduites en françois, avec des Remarques, Par Madame D***
  • Publisher: Denys Thierry & Claude Barbin
  • N° Editions: 6
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1687
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    Le Fèvre mentions different previous translations in the preface, some of which she retained accurate, but it is unclear which source she used. Her father privately printed a version of the six comedies included in this volume, to publish a new translation with comments, so that it is likely Le Fèvre employed this version to continue in her father's steps. Another possible source is the 1651 Elzevier Pub. Terentii Comœdiæ sex ex recensions Heinsiana, also mentioned by Le Fèvre.

    Le Fèvre's edition also includes a life of Terence translated from Suetonius' De Poetis.


  • Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν

  • Translation Title: Réflexions morales de l’empereur Marc Antonin, avec des remarques
  • Original Author: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
  • Original title: Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν
  • Publ. Year From: 0178 to:
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: Réflexions morales de l’empereur Marc Antonin, avec des remarques
  • Publisher: Claude Barbin
  • N° Editions: 7
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1690
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    The Dacier couple worked on this translation to adapt Marcus Aurelius' Stoic morals to the christian religion, as 'nôtre unique dessein a été de faire de ce Livre, un livre de pieté' (preface).

    In the preface, Anne Le Fèvre and André Dacier also complain about Antonio de Guevara's apocryphal Libro llamado relox de principes en el qual va incorporado el muy famoso libro de Marco Aurelio (1529), claimed to have been a translation from an original Greek manuscript. Their life of Marcus Aurelius, dedicated to the president of the assembly of the French clergy François Harlay de Champvalon, exclude Guevara as a source, but does not acknowledge any other.

  • Βίοι Παράλληλοι

  • Translation Title: Les Vies des hommes illustres de Plutarque traduites en françois, avec des Remarques
  • Original Author: Plutarch
  • Original title: Βίοι Παράλληλοι
  • Publ. Year From: 0099 to: 0198
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: Les Vies des hommes illustres de Plutarque traduites en françois, avec des Remarques
  • N° Editions: 4
  • Pub. Date: 1693
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    Le Fèvre and Dacier refer in the preface to Jean Amyot's Parallel Lives (1559), the first translation from the Vatican text to circulate in Europe, as a very faithful and elegant rendering, albeit outdated. It is not clear which source they used to compose their version.

    The volume contains the first six lives: Theseus and Romulus, Lycurgus and Numa Pompilius, Solon and Publicola.

  • Ἰλιάς

  • Translation Title: L'Iliade d'Homère, traduite en François, avec de remarques. Par Madame Dacier
  • Original Author: Homer
  • Original title: Ἰλιάς
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: L'Iliade d'Homère, traduite en François, avec de remarques. Par Madame Dacier
  • Publisher: Rigaud
  • N° Editions: 6
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1710
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    In the Preface, Le Fèvre acknowledges to have followed the compositional rules of the epic poem contained in René Le Bossu's Traité du poème épique (1675) and in her husband's translation of La Poétique d'Aristote (1692) to shape her translation. 


  • Ὀδύσσεια

  • Translation Title: L’Odyssée d’Homère traduite en françois, avec des remarques, par Madame Dacier
  • Original Author: Homer
  • Original title: Ὀδύσσεια
  • lang: Ancient Greek
  • Translation: L’Odyssée d’Homère traduite en françois, avec des remarques, par Madame Dacier
  • Publisher: Rigaud
  • N° Editions: 7
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1715
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    Le Fèvre's preface is a remarkable overview of her thoughts on the nature of epic poems, which included an extended literary review of the Odyssey.

calamaio

By:

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