Donald M. Frame
Encyclopedia
Donald M. Frame a scholar of French Renaissance literature, was Moore Professor Emeritus of French at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, where he labored for half a century.

Biography

Donald Murdoch Frame graduated from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1932 and earned a master's and a doctorate from the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, writing his dissertation on Montaigne.

In World War II he served in the U.S. Navy.

Personal life and views

Frame married Katherine Mailler Wygant, who died in 1972; they had two sons. In a second marriage he wed Kathleen Whelan.

Frame's scrupulous scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

 and erudition were widely admired. On April 19, 1968, he gave a Phi Beta Kappa Lecture at Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

 entitled "Montaigne on the Absurdity and Dignity of Man"; the title epitomizes his interpretation of the 16th-century author to whom he devoted so much of his life.

Published work

Donald Frame was a recognized authority on the works of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne , February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism...

, whose Complete Works he published in translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

 in 1958. He also studied the works of François Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...

, and published a book-length study of the author of Gargantua and Pantagruel
Pantagruel
Pantagruel is an international Early Music ensemble specialising in semi-staged performances of Renaissance music. The group was formed in Essen, Germany at the end of 2002 by the English lutenist Mark Wheeler and the German born Dominik Schneider...

in 1977. A translation by Frame of Rabelais's complete works was published posthumously six months after his death. Frame also translated works by Moliere
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

.

Frame's translations were much admired during his own lifetime. More recent critics have been less generous. While The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation (2000) praises Frame's "accuracy," it also calls him "often obscure and awkward."
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