Polemical translation, translating polemic: Anne Dacier’s rhetoric in the Homer Quarrel

Abstract

This article examines Anne Dacier’s rhetoric and its reception in the Querelle d’Homère (1711–1719). Although a woman writer, Dacier was accepted for her learning, as quarrel participant, and as an Ancient. Yet her polemical voice has proven contentious. Analysing her interventions, notably her last work, Réflexions sur la première partie de la préface de Mr Pope (1719), which I suggest is a polemical translation of Alexander Pope’s Iliad Preface, I explore Dacier’s male-gendered rhetoric and the significance of the Quarrel in her projected legacy. I argue that Dacier’s case unsettles the role of translation in the Republic of Letters.