Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Nally, Ginger C

Titel

Une étude de la traduction, de la publication, de la dissémination, et de l'im pact des écrits politiques de la Révolution américaine sur la société française et sur la pensée politique française jusqu’en 1800

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This thesis is a study of the translation, publication, dissemination and impact of political writings of the American Revolution on French society and on French political thought up to 1800. It is an inquiry into the role of American thought, as well as the filter of translation, in the ideas that inspired the French Revolution by a translation analysis of the 18th century French translations of the Declaration of Independence and the thirteen American state constitutions, translated by Louis-Alexandre, duc de La Rochefoucauld d’Enville between 1776 and 1783. In this thesis, La Rochefoucauld is established as an important political actor through his role as translator of the American Code of Liberty, as promoter of radical reforms in France, and as an active member of the Constituent Assembly. He would participate in the promotion of American liberties and rights well before the French Revolution as his translations of the constitutions interpolated additional material on important topics of political and institutional significance. A corpus of texts belonging to the period 1760-1800 has been examined in order to assess changes in ideas as well as political reform beginning over a decade before the commencement of the American Revolution as well as a decade after the start of the Revolution in France. Key actors whose writings are important here include Hilliard d’Auberteuil, Chastellux, Démeunier, La Rochefoucauld d’Enville, Brissot de Warville, Condorcet, Mandrillon, Mirabeau, Abbé Robin, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. The American constitutional framework provided French reformers the concrete example of a nation where a constitution functioned in reality. Both the publication of Americanist literature as well as translation of American writings became tools for filtering ideas and for promoting reforms in France, which, in turn, influenced the debates of the National Constituent Assembly.