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The Adventures of Telemachus. By FrançoisFénelon, translated and edited by A. J. B.Cremer. London: Anastasis Books. 2022. xlv + 419 p. £24.50 (hb). ISBN 978‐1739798314.

2024; Wiley; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/1754-0208.12971

1754-0208

Emrys Jones,

Historical and Literary Studies

The reputation of Fénelon's Télémaque (1699) not so much precedes as subsumes the work itself, particularly in anglophone eighteenth-century studies where the book is regularly name-checked but very little read. A. J. B. Cremer's new edition justifiably claims to offer the first new prose translation into English in over two hundred years, on the basis that Cambridge University Press's 1994 publication — ostensibly a fresh translation by Patrick Riley — was in fact a very light update of Tobias Smollett's 1776 version. Cremer's work is therefore welcome, providing an accessible and faithful record of what eighteenth-century readers most valued in Telemachus. There are, however, some points of awkwardness arising from the volume's editorial strategies, and these occasionally serve to obscure the scholarly insight that abounds throughout the edition. Telemachus is a far more approachable text than its various invocations in British philosophical and literary tradition may have led some to assume. Its principal bequest to the English language speaks to its didacticism — we take the word 'mentor' from the name of the character who guides and advises Fénelon's hero through his travels and who is in fact the goddess Minerva in disguise. However, the text's frequent disquisitions on virtue and good kingship never seem dry or indulgently academic. Far from it, Fénelon's thoughts on these topics are consistently tinged by an opposition to Louis XIV's authoritarianism which would lead to a dramatic fall from favour in the last decades of the author's life. The work's lessons are thus not delivered in a complacent spirit but an urgent, radical one, and it is no surprise that they found a receptive audience among constitutional thinkers in early eighteenth-century Britain, or later, in the nascent American republic. Besides the work's moral seriousness, Cremer's translation also captures what is entertaining and imaginatively engaging about Fénelon's masterpiece. It is, after all, an adventure taking place in the shadow of Ulysses's journey home from Troy. Even if the young Telemachus's wanderings never quite reach the heights of erotic temptation or supernatural wonder experienced by his more famous father, the narrative necessarily partakes of a great deal of the mythical world's intrigue. It is understandable, if not perhaps inevitable, that the editorial apparatus of Cremer's volume is more concerned with emphasizing the philosophical and spiritual profundity of Fénelon's work than with explaining its references. The book's extensive endnotes tend to point out Biblical and Classical echoes in Fénelon's language, but the task of clarifying who a particular character is, or where Telemachus's travels have taken him at a given point in the narrative, is mostly left to two separate lists: a short 'Key to Classical References' (396–98) and a much more substantial 'Glossary and Index of Names' (399–419). The latter especially is a very helpful resource: it uses italics to distinguish between names of Fénelon's own invention and those originating in ancient mythology or history. Nonetheless, by divorcing this explanatory material from the bulk of the endnotes, and by keeping most of the glossary entries relatively succinct, the volume sometimes makes it harder than it should be for the reader to contextualize Fénelon's allusions with precision. Take, for instance, the King of Crete, Idomeneus, whose unhappy backstory and education in moral leadership provide important parallels to Telemachus's own development. Alongside an exhaustive list of his appearances in the volume, Idomeneus's entry in the Glossary notes that he features in Book III of Virgil's Aeneid. What we do not get is a clear sense of how far and in what respects Fénelon was indebted to Virgil. There is also no mention of Idomeneus's appearance in Homer's Iliad or of writers after Virgil who had elaborated on his story in ways that clearly influenced Fénelon. Taken in isolation, this is only a minor problem, and one easily redressed by a little additional reading, but it is indicative of the occasional blind spots resulting from Cremer's generously discursive editorial mode. This is indeed a generous book, not least in the way it attends to the text's legacies outside of France. Cremer's introduction (xi–xxix) reflects on Telemachus's significance for Addison, Pope, Bentham, and many others, and if these names sometimes seem to be wielded defensively, as if proving why anyone else should care about the work, it is valuable all the same to get a sense of Fénelon's broad intellectual appeal. An accompanying 'Note on Translations' (xxxvii–xlv) likewise underscores Telemachus's international reach, with discussion of the more than ten different translations produced in Britain during the eighteenth century, along with consideration of the reasons for its later neglect. It may be churlish to ask for more when there is already such a wealth of prefatory material, but the one notable facet of the work that is not fully addressed here or elsewhere in the volume is Cremer's own role as translator. A clear statement of the principles behind his translation, and the particular decisions made in order to balance fidelity with readability, would have been welcome. The absence of such becomes conspicuous at the conclusion of Fénelon's narrative, when (in Book XVIII) the wise Mentor finally reveals himself as Minerva. This passage is elegantly rendered by Cremer in the historic present tense, faithful to Fénelon's own use of that literary device. But it necessitates a somewhat awkward endnote, explaining that Fénelon's other, earlier uses of the historic present have not been honoured in the same way, since Cremer 'is not convinced that it works as well nowadays' (389). One wonders why he has stuck with it for the adventure's denouement in that case, and what distortive effect it might have on the reader's impressions to apply it here and not elsewhere. It certainly makes for a transcendent, revelatory moment that does justice to the theological concerns so deftly adumbrated throughout this edition, but this climax would have been still more powerful if the stylistic choice were justified at greater length, with reference to the translator's underlying priorities.