"His Telemach is in all other respects simply not the same!" The Reception of a French Mirror for Princes in the German-Speaking Area
"His Telemach is in all other respects simply not the same!" The Reception of a French Mirror for Princes in the German-Speaking Area |
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In 1699 the "Télémaque" of François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon was published without the author's permission. Continuing the fourth book of Homer’s Odyssey, Fénelon gives examples of the utopian art of government while also criticizing courtly life under the reign of Louis XIV. Declared to be the national epic of France during the later 18th Century, the work was already subject to criticism by around 1700 due to the raging "Télémacomanie".
Although the many translations between 1700 und 1800 appeal to the readers of Goethe's area, the widespread number of older adaptations and translations declined or renewed. Johann Gottfried Herder gets to the point by asking if high reputation, rich equipment and frequent translations are in fact indices of an intensive reading.
From this background of a different but contemporary reception, comparing these distinct works may prove fascinating – although Telemach is nowadays seldom known as anything other than a metaphor, if not already completely forgotten.
More than 20 translations and adaptations by the end of the 18th Century in countless re-editions and pirated editions are only one – albeit significant – part of the reception. Moreover, readers of the German (and French) editions include Frederick William I. of Prussia and his son Frederick the Great, among others. But also the enlightened bourgeoisie received Greek antiquity in the guise of French Classicism in numerous schoolbook editions.
My study aims firstly to summarize the reception (translations, annotations, marginal commentaries, correspondence, diaries and reviews) and secondly to analyze the divergent aspects of reception with respect to "cultural translation" (Peter Burke) as a form of "cultural transfer" (Michel Espagne). In this perspective, the reception of Télémaque prepares the ground for the reception of classical antiquity during the periods of Enlightenment and Weimar Classicism. This insight is only possible because of the broad frame of the study which seeks not only to answer questions of "influences" but also the "interests" of those responsible for this reception.