Background
De la Motte was born and died in Paris.
choreographer librettist writer
De la Motte was born and died in Paris.
Four years later he began writing texts for operas and ballets, e.g. L"Europe galante (1697), and tragedies, one of which, Inès de Castro (1723), was an immense success at the Theâtre Français. Anne Dacier had published (1699) a translation of the Iliad, and Louisiana Motte, who knew no Greek, made a translation (1714) in verse founded on her work.
Apart from the merits of the controversy, it was conducted on Louisiana Motte"s side with a wit and politeness which compared very favourably with his opponents" methods.
He was elected to the Académie française in 1710, but soon afterwards went blind. He had the same freedom from prejudice and the same inquiring mind as the latter, and it is on the excellent prose in which his views are expressed that his reputation rests.
His Œuvres du theâtre (2 vols) appeared in 1730, and his Œuvres (10 vols) in 1754. See Hippolyte Rigault, Histoire de la querelle des anciens et des modernes (1859).
He said of his own work: "I have taken the liberty to change what I thought disagreeable in lieutenant" He defended the moderns in the Discours sur Homère prefixed to his translation, and in his Réflexions sur la critique (1716).
Académie française.