Jacques de Tourreil

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Jacques de Tourreil (born November 18, 1656 in Toulouse , † October 11, 1714 in Paris ) was a French lawyer, Graecist , translator and member of the Académie française .

life and work

Speaker, translator and member of two academies

Jacques de Tourreil came from a family of lawyers in Toulouse. In the Jesuit college he learned ancient Greek and proved to be a talented speaker early on. After further legal and philological studies in Paris, he won the rhetoric prize of the Académie française in 1681 and 1683 and began to study the speeches of Demosthenes to perfect his eloquence . In 1691 his translation of Demosthenes was a success with the public. He was accepted into the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (at that time still under the name Petite Académie or Académie des médailles ) and in 1692 in the Académie française (seat no. 40). Since he was one of the most valued speakers there, he was commissioned in 1694 to present the dictionary to the Academy at court, which had finally been completed. In fulfilling this obligation, he gave a total of 32 different speeches (so-called “compliments”). In the meantime he had been employed by the almighty Chancellor Louis Phélipeaux de Pontchartrain (1643-1727), called Pontchartrain, as a teacher of his son Jérôme Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain (1674-1747) and wrote the Essais de jurisprudence (1694) for his pupil . When his precious and somewhat affected language met with criticism, he was not on the point of revising the text and bringing it into a more classic form.

Development of his translation strategy

He applied the same process of tireless text improvement to his translation work. In 1701 he presented his Demosthenes translation in an expanded new version, and he worked on this text as well (based on textual criticism) until the end of his life, so that seven years after his death his friend, the Jesuit Guillaume Massieu , made one last scholarly remarks could publish an enriched version (within the framework of the collected works). The movement of his style went from the original target text orientation (in the sense of the "belles infidèles") to a stronger emphasis on the source text. While Racine had still scoffed at the first versions: Ah le bourreau! Il fera tant qu'il donnera de l'esprit à Demosthène! (This is how you break a text! It also makes a Demosthenes smack!), The last version tried to be close to the characteristic style of the original.

reception

In Georges Duhain (1860–1934), Tourreil found a sensitive biographer who knew how to place and appreciate his lifelong commitment to translating from ancient Greek into the context of contemporary history and thus overcame the negative image that Racine's derogatory remark (French: le mot qui do ) left with posterity.

Works

  • (Translator) Harangues de Demosthene. Avec des Remarques . Antoine Dezallier, Paris 1691.
  • Essais de jurisprudence . Coignard, Paris 1694.
  • (Translator) Philippiques de Demosthene avec des remarques . The Hague 1701.
  • (with others) Médailles sur les principaux évènements du règne entier de Louis-le-Grand, avec des explications historiques . Paris 1702, 1723. (Script from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres)
  • Œuvres de Monsieur de Tourreil, de L'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres et l'un des Quarante de L'Académie Françoise . 4 vols / 2 vols. Michel Brunet, Paris 1721. (Ed. Guillaume Massieu)

literature

  • Georges Duhain: Jacques de Tourreil, traducteur de Démosthène (1656–1714). Un traducteur de la fin du XVIIe siècle et du commencement du XVIIIe siècle. Champion, Paris 1910. Digitized

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Tourreil, Jacques de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French lawyer, Greek scholar, translator and member of the Académie française
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1656
PLACE OF BIRTH Toulouse
DATE OF DEATH October 11, 1714
Place of death Paris