ABSTRACT
The seventeenth-century French translation of Anna Maria van Schurman’s letters on the education of women is the focus of this chapter. Van Schurman (1607-1678), commonly known as the ‘Star of Utrecht’, was one of the most learned women in Europe. The first woman to attend lectures at a Dutch university, she mastered twelve languages other than Dutch, including Ethiopic for which she wrote a grammar. She was also a much sought-after correspondent. In the 1630s she corresponded in Latin with André Rivet (1572-1651), a French Protestant theologian then at the University of Leiden, on the subject of whether scholarly work is fitting for a ‘Christian woman’. Three of her Latin letters on this topic were published, together with Rivet’s responses, in a volume that also includes her treatise entitled Dissertatio, de Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam et meliores Litteras aptitudine (1641).1 The French academician Guillaume Colletet (1598-1659) translated three of these letters under the title Question celebre. S’il est necessaire, ou non, que les filles soient sçavantes (1646).2 Dedicated to Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans (1627-1693), Duchess of Montpensier, the French version of this correspondence was destined to attract attention. Van Schurman (1607-1678) was known throughout Europe for her prodigious learning, while the Duchess of Montpensier, ‘la Grande Mademoiselle’, was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in France. Using the gallant terminology of the day, Colletet, a seasoned translator, presents the exchange between Rivet and his ‘fille d’alliance’ (‘adopted literary daughter’) as ‘one of the most beautiful and most moderate duels of the pen
1 Anna Maria van Schurman, Dissertatio de Ingenii Muliebris ad Doctrinam, et meliores Litteras aptitudine. Accedunt quaedam Epistolae, ejusdem Argumenti (Lugd. Batavor: Ex Officina Elseviriana, 1641) (A Dissertation on the Aptitude of the Female Mind for Science and Letters). These are abbreviated in subsequent references as Dissertatio or Epistolae.
