Çédille: Revista de Estudios Franceses (Apr 2014)
La lectura moral de Rousseau por un clérigo liberal español: La Nueva Heloísa en versión de Antero Benito y Núñez (1814 y 1820)
Abstract
The present article studies the first translation into Spanish of Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse, carried out in exile by the pro-French Antero Benito y Núñez, who published a first edition of the text in Bayonne in 1814, and a second revised version in Bordeaux and Madrid six years later. The present study focuses initially on the circumstances of the Spanish version (details of the translation's author, and textual and publishing details of the two editions of the novel), before examination of the translation as contained in the complete, annotated, second edition of 1820. What this analysis reveals is the moral perspective which a priest with enlightened ideas and liberalizing views wished to present to Spanish readers of the philosophical vision which in his view was present in the work of Rousseau.
