Aristophanes and the French Translations of Anne Dacier

Anne Dacier (née Le Fèvre) produced a French translation of Clouds and Plutus in 1684 which ensured that the vernacular reader could read two complete plays of Aristophanes in French for the first time. It was as a particularly bold undertaking, given the limited work in this area before her and this comic playwright's unfavourable reputation in 17th-century France. Her work gained relatively little immediate attention by reviewers and enjoyed only a limited number of re-editions (compared to, for example, her Terence), but it was destined to exert a significant influence on the reception of Aristophanes in France and beyond. This chapter takes our understanding of her landmark translation of Aristophanes further in two ways. Firstly by exploring the rhetorical strategies Dacier employed in trying to persuade the vernacular reader of the brilliance of the original, particularly in her 'remarques' (notes). Secondly the discussion examines the motivations and implications of Dacier’s radical change to the gender of two characters in Clouds. This change has gone unnoticed in previous discussions of Dacier's translation but reveals a significant strand in the reception history of Aristophanes and an important element to Dacier's influence on subsequent English translations.