Intellectual journeys

the translation of ideas in Enlightenment England, France and Ireland

Volume: 2013:12

Series: SVEC

Volume Editors: Lise Andries, Frédéric Ogée, John Dunkley and Darach Sanfey

Series Collaborators: Lise Andries, CELLF, CNRS-Université de Paris-Sorbonne; John Baker, Université de Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne; Emma Barker, The Open University; Samuel Baudry; Université Lumière Lyon 2 ; Muriel Collart, Université de Liège; Pierre Degott, Université de Lorraine; Seán Patrick Donlan, University of Limerick; Daniel Droixhe, Universités de Bruxelles et de Liège et Académie royale de Langue et de Littérature françaises de Belgique; John Dunkley, University of Aberdeen; Sarah Easterby-Smith; University of St Andrews; Garry Headland, Institution Saint-Joseph; Máire Kennedy, Dublin City Public Libraries; Alexis Levrier, Université de Reims; Anne-Marie Mercier, Université de Lyon 2; Allison Neill-Rabaux, University of Ulster; Frédéric Ogée, Université Paris Diderot; Anne Richardot, Université de Lille III; Vladislav Rjeoutski, University of Bristol; Darach Sanfey, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick; Ann Thomson, European University Institute, and Université Paris 8.

Publication Date: 2013

Pages: 390

ISBN: 978-0-7294-1078-6

Price: £75

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The exchange of ideas between nations during the Enlightenment was greatly facilitated by cultural ventures, commercial enterprise and scientific collaboration. But how were they exchanged? What were the effects of these exchanges on the idea or artefact being transferred?

Focussing on contact between England, France and Ireland, a team of specialists explores the translation, appropriation and circulation of cultural products and scientific ideas during the Enlightenment. Through analysis of literary and artistic works, periodicals and official writings contributors uncover:
• the key role played by literary translators and how they adapted, naturalized and sometimes distorted plays and novels to conform to new cultural norms;
• the effects of eighteenth-century anglomania, and how this was manifested in French art;
• how the vagaries of international politics and conflict affected both the cultural products themselves and the modes of dissemination;
• how religious censorship engendered new Irish Catholic and French Huguenot diasporas, with their particular intellectual pursuits and networks of exchange;
• the significance of newspapers and periodicals in disseminating new knowledge and often radical philosophical ideas.

By exploring both broad areas of cultural activity and precise examples of cultural transfer, contributors to Intellectual journeys reveal the range and complexity of intellectual exchange and its role in the formation of a truly transnational Enlightenment.
Lise Andries, Frédéric Ogée, Darach Sanfey and John Dunkley, Introduction
I. Translation
Samuel Baudry, Imitation and translation: the debate in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland
Garry Headland, Arthur Murphy: adapter, imitator and translator
Seán Patrick Donlan, ‘If my labour hath been of service’: translating Thomas Nugent, c.1700?-1772
John Baker, Lost and found in translation: adapting and adopting Young – from the Night thoughts to the Nuits d’Young, passing by the Love of fame
Pierre Degott, ‘Let me have the credit of the translation’: French and English operatic adaptations of Tom Jones
II. Art and literature
John Dunkley, Destouches and the London theatre: the 1722 performance of L’Ingrat and after
Anne Richardot, L’histoire anglaise à la française
Lise Andries, La littérature de faits divers criminels en France et en Angleterre
Emma Barker, Greuze and England
III. The circulation of knowledge
Ann Thomson, Toland, Dodwell, Swift and the circulation of irreligious ideas in France: what does the study of international networks tell us about the ‘radical Enlightenment’?
Darach Sanfey, ‘Un redoutable talent pour la dispute’: Montesquieu and the Irish
Máire Kennedy, Irish booksellers and the movement of ideas in the eighteenth century
Sarah Easterby-Smith, Cross-Channel commerce: the circulation of plants, people and botanical culture between France and Britain, c.1760-c.1789
IV. The press
Alexis Lévrier, Justus Van Effen, un ‘passeur’ entre les presses anglaise et française
Anne-Marie Mercier, Les échanges culturels entre Français et Anglais: vers une meilleure compréhension? L’exemple de la presse (L’Esprit des journaux) entre 1772 et 1785
Muriel Collart and Daniel Droixhe, Grandeur et décadence des Patagons? De la Critical review à L’Esprit des journaux (1767-1780)
Allison Neill-Rabaux, A Literary journal: a forum for exchange in Ireland?
Vladislav Rjéoutski, Cas de transfert culturel triangulaire: Grande-Bretagne–France–Russie: le Journal des sciences et des arts de Philippe Hernandez, Moscou, 1761
Summaries
List of contributors
Bibliography
Index