Pindarica academica: les traductions de l’abbé Massieu et de L.-F. de Sozzi comme jalons dans la reconquête de Pindare au XVIIIe siècle

Abstract

French Pindaric tradition of the eighteenth century has not been so far investigated thoroughly and appreciated at its true worth and importance. The reason for this hermeneutic lack must be found in the scornful disregard brought against a concern which looks unimpressive in comparison with the contemporary German philological field. In fact, the institutional weakness of Greek studies after the French humanistic golden age of the Renaissance and the so-called Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns contributed to marginalizing the reading and translating of Greek works. Moreover, in the difficult case of Pindaric poetry, misunderstanding and misjudgment went together, in so far as its obscurity, related to the poet's «enthusiastic» inspiration and sublimity, was considered as, so to say, mystically unattainable and untouchable in view of the French aesthetic schemes. In such a context, Massieu's and Sozzi's respective tasks reveal and effort to demystify Pindar's hermetism by testing a copy-translation able to conciliate the recognition of the poetic deviations and the French classical sense of harmony. The present paper is concerned with both these scholars' works and their indirect filiation.