Rameau's Nephew and D'Alembert's Dream by Denis Diderot. Baltimore. 1966. Penguin Books. Translated from the French & With An Introduction by Leonard Tancock. 237 pages. paperback. L173. The cover shows Louis Carrogis Carmontelle's portrait of Rameau.
DESCRIPTION - Diderot (1713-1784), tireless editor of the Encyclopedie, was one of the most advanced thinkers of the age before the French Revolution. His many literary works are evidence of a curious and eccentric genius, and RAMEAU'S NEPHEW is not the least remarkable of them. In this dramatized conversation, which swings from the sublime to the ridiculous and is constantly interrupted by the nephew's antics, Diderot openly challenges the moral principles of the day. The dialogue form is retained in D'ALEMBERT'S DREAM, in which he attacks stale conventions and threshes out a strange up-to-date view of life, sex, and morals.
Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, born at Langres in eastern France, the son of a master-cutler. He was originally destined for the Church, but rebelled and persuaded his father to allow him to complete his education in Paris. For most of his twenties and early thirties, Diderot remained nominally a law student, but in fact led a rather precarious and Bohemian existence. He read extensively during this period, and this is reflected in his early works such as the Pensées philosophiques (1746) and the Lettre sur les aveugles (1749) which show a keen interest in contemporary philosophical issues. During the early 1740s Diderot met three contemporaries of great future significance for himself and for the age: d’Alembert, Condillac and J. J. Rousseau. In 1747 Diderot embarked on the most important task of his life, the editorship of the Encyclopédie, whose publication he oversaw until its completion in 1773. Diderot’s boldest philosophical and scientific speculations are brilliantly summarized in a trilogy of dialogues collectively known as Le Réve de d’Alembert (1769). With Le Neveu de Rameau, begun in 1761, and Jacques le Fataliste, written between approximately 1755 and 1784, Diderot produced his greatest works of prose fiction, works which are highly original and daring, both in their form and in their content. Towards the end of his life, by now one of the most famous French writers, Diderot visited Saint Petersburg at the invitation of one of his most powerful admirers, the empress Catherine the Great, to whom he had promised his extensive library in return for her financial assistance. He died in 1784.
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