ABSTRACT
James Harrington’s works were translated into French much later in the eighteenth-century as compared to other prominent figures of mid-seventeenth-century republicanism. Algernon Sidney’s Discourses concerning Government was first translated in 1702, and Milton or Nedham’s major works were translated in the early hours of the French Revolution. Œuvres politiques de Jacques Harrington, écuyer and Aphorismes politiques both came out in the year III of the French Republic (1794–5) and were translated from John Toland’s collection of Harrington’s Political Works (1700).
In his preface to Œuvres politiques, Pierre-François Henry explains why he undertook the translation of the English Republican’s difficult prose at this particular moment of the French Revolution. Drawing on Reinhart Koselleck’s concepts of ‘experience’ and ‘horizon of expectation’, this contribution deals with the two quasi-simultaneous editions of Harrington’s works in post-Thermidorian France. It focuses on the individuals who decided to publish a French version of his corpus and their apparent intentions in doing so. It also deals with the way the translators made use of Toland’s introduction and adapted some of the seventeenth-century English thinker’s key notions to the French public.
