Two Popular Accounts of Emilie du Chatelet and the Gender Problem

• KAWASHIMA Keiko

  Omohi-College, Nagoya Institute of Technology

抄録

Emilie du Chatelet (1706-1749) gained fame as the brilliant mistress of Voltaire and as the only translator of Newton's Principia into French. Certain preposterous accounts of this translation have survived as truth. Two are discussed: (1) She was originally a Cartesian but, influenced by Voltaire and Maupertuis, she became a Newtonianist. Her tutor Koenig then made her a Leibnizian, as which she wrote Institutions de Physique. Finally, she reconverted to Newtonianism to make her translation and commentary on the Principia. (2) She became pregnant from an affair with St-Lambert. Helped by Voltaire and her last lover, she deceived her husband to legitimize the child, turning the marquis into a perfect Molierian cuckold. These two false histories present a highly "feminine" image of Du Chatelet as a woman passive intellectually while overly active emotionally. Demonstrating the historical and scientific falseness of these accounts involves examining how gender has influenced their reception.

収録刊行物

• Historia scientiarum. Second series : international journal of the History of Science Society of Japan

  Historia scientiarum. Second series : international journal of the History of Science Society of Japan 17 (2), 121-133, 2007-11-30

  日本科学史学会

キーワード

• Emilie du Chatelet
• Voltaire
• Principia
• gender
• Longchamp

詳細情報

• CRID: 1572824502087715840
• NII論文ID: 110006622673
• NII書誌ID: AA11081495
• ISSN: 02854821
• 本文言語コード: en
• データソース種別:
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