Nisha Rathode (Editor)

Antoine Houdar de la Motte

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Name
  
Antoine de

Role
  
Author

Antoine Houdar de la Motte httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu
Born
  
18 January 1672 Paris (
1672-01-18
)

Died
  
December 26, 1731, Paris, France

Books
  
Semele: tragedie ... ..., One Hundred New Court Fables, 1721, Fables, Pieces de Theatre

Libretti
  
L'Europe galante, Isse, Alcyone

Similar People
  
Andre Campra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Marin Marais, Jean‑Pierre Claris de Florian, Francois Fenelon

Antoine Houdar de la Motte (18 January 1672 – 26 December 1731) was a French author.

De la Motte was born and died in Paris. In 1693 his comedy, Les Originaux (Les originaux, ou, l'Italien), was a complete failure, and so depressed the author that he contemplated joining the Trappists. Four years later he began writing texts for operas and ballets, e.g. L'Europe galante (1697), and tragedies, one of which, Ines de Castro (1723), was an immense success at the Theatre Francais. He was a champion of the moderns in the revived controversy of the ancients and moderns. Anne Dacier had published (1699) a translation of the Iliad, and La Motte, who knew no Greek, made a translation (1714) in verse founded on her work.

He said of his own work: "I have taken the liberty to change what I thought disagreeable in it." He defended the moderns in the Discours sur Homere prefixed to his translation, and in his Reflexions sur la critique (1716). Apart from the merits of the controversy, it was conducted on La Motte's side with a wit and politeness which compared very favourably with his opponents' methods. He was elected to the Academie francaise in 1710, but soon afterwards went blind. La Motte carried on a correspondence with the duchesse du Maine, and was the friend of Fontenelle. He had the same freedom from prejudice and the same inquiring mind as the latter, and it is on the excellent prose in which his views are expressed that his reputation rests.

His Œuvres du theatre (2 vols.) appeared in 1730, and his Œuvres (10 vols.) in 1754. See Hippolyte Rigault, Histoire de la querelle des anciens et des modernes (1859).

References

Antoine Houdar de la Motte Wikipedia