''Rameau's Nephew, or the Second Satire'' (or The Nephew of Rameau, ) is an imaginary philosophical conversation by
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during th ...
, probably written between 1761 and 1774.
It was first published in
1805 in German translation by
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
,
but the French manuscript used had subsequently disappeared. The German version was translated back into French by de Saur and Saint-Geniès and published in 1821. The first published version based on French manuscript appeared in 1823 in the
Brière edition of Diderot's works. Modern editions are based on the complete manuscript in Diderot's own hand found by Georges Monval, the librarian at the
Comédie-Française in 1890, while buying music scores from a second-hand bookshop in Paris. Monval published his edition of the manuscript in
1891. Subsequently, the manuscript was bought by the
Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.
According to Andrew S. Curran, Diderot did not publish the dialogue during his lifetime because his portrayals of famous musicians, politicians and financiers would have warranted his arrest.
Description
The recounted story takes place in the
Café de la Régence
The Café de la Régence in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there.
The Café's masters included, but are not limited to:
* Paul Morphy
* Françoi ...
, where Moi ("Me"), a narrator-like persona (often mistakenly supposed to stand for Diderot himself), describes for the reader a recent encounter he has had with the character Lui ("Him"), referring to—yet not literally meaning—Jean-François Rameau, the nephew of the
famous composer, who has engaged him in an intricate battle of wits,
self-reflexivity
Self-reference is a concept that involves referring to oneself or one's own attributes, characteristics, or actions. It can occur in language, logic, mathematics, philosophy, and other fields.
In natural or formal languages, self-reference oc ...
,
allegory
As a List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...
and
allusion
Allusion, or alluding, is a figure of speech that makes a reference to someone or something by name (a person, object, location, etc.) without explaining how it relates to the given context, so that the audience must realize the connection in the ...
. Lui defends a worldview based on
cynicism,
hedonism
Hedonism is a family of Philosophy, philosophical views that prioritize pleasure. Psychological hedonism is the theory that all human behavior is Motivation, motivated by the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. As a form of Psycholo ...
and
materialism
Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
.
Recurring themes in the discussion include the
Querelle des Bouffons
The ("Quarrel of the Comic Actors"), also known as the ("War of the Comic Actors"), was the name given to a battle of musical philosophies that took place in Paris between 1752 and 1754. The controversy concerned the relative merits of French ...
(the French/Italian opera battle), education of children, the nature of genius and money. The often rambling conversation pokes fun at numerous prominent figures of the time.
In the prologue that precedes the conversation, the first-person narrator frames Lui as eccentric and extravagant, full of contradictions, "a mixture of the sublime and the base, of good sense and irrationality". Effectively being a provocateur, Lui seemingly extols the virtues of crime and theft, raising love of gold to the level of a religion. Moi appears initially to have a didactic role, while the nephew (Lui) succeeds in conveying a cynical, if perhaps immoral, vision of reality.
According to Andrew S. Curran, the main themes of this work are the consequences of God's non-existence for the possibility of morality and the distinction between human beings and animals.
Michel Foucault
Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...
, in his ''
Madness and Civilization
''Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason'' (, 1961)The original title was changed for the second edition of 1972 by Éditions Gallimard, revised and expanded, and replaced with the previous subtitle: "History of madne ...
'', saw in the ridiculous figure of Rameau's nephew a kind of exemplar of a uniquely modern incarnation of the
Buffoon.
Summary
Preface
The narrator has made his way to his usual haunt on a rainy day, the ''
Café de la Régence
The Café de la Régence in Paris was an important European centre of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. All important chess masters of the time played there.
The Café's masters included, but are not limited to:
* Paul Morphy
* Françoi ...
'', France's chess mecca, where he enjoys watching such masters as
Philidor or
Legall. He is accosted by an eccentric figure: ''I do not esteem such originals. Others make them their familiars, even their friends. Such a man will draw my attention perhaps once a year when I meet him because his character offers a sharp contrast with the usual run of men, and a break from the dull routine imposed by one's education, social conventions and manners. When in company, he works as a pinch of leaven, causing fermentation and restoring each to his natural bend. One feels shaken and moved; prompted to approve or blame; he causes truth to shine forth, good men to stand out, villains to unmask. Then will the wise man listen and get to know those about him.''
[Translated from ''Rameau's Nephew''](_blank)
/ref>
Dialogue
The dialogue form allows Diderot to examine issues from widely different perspectives. The character of Rameau's nephew is presented as extremely unreliable, ironical and self-contradicting, so that the reader may never know whether he is being sincere or provocative. The impression is that of nuggets of truth artfully embedded in trivia.
A parasite in a well-to-do family, Rameau's nephew has recently been kicked out because he refused to compromise with the truth. Now he will not humble himself by apologizing. And yet, rather than starve, shouldn't one live at the expense of rich fools and knaves as he once did, pimping for a lord? Society does not allow the talented to support themselves because it does not value them, leaving them to beg while the rich, the powerful and stupid poke fun at men like '' Buffon, Duclos, Montesquieu
Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.
He is the principal so ...
, Rousseau, Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...
, D'Alembert
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert ( ; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanics, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''E ...
and Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominent figure during t ...
''. The poor genius is left with but two options: to crawl and flatter or to dupe and cheat, either being repugnant to the sensitive mind. ''If virtue had led the way to fortune, I would either have been virtuous or pretended to be so like others; I was expected to play the fool, and a fool I turned myself into.''
History
In ''Rameau's Nephew'', Diderot attacked and ridiculed the critics of the Enlightenment, but he knew from past experience that some of his enemies were sufficiently powerful to have him arrested or the work banned. Diderot had been imprisoned in 1749 after publishing his ''Lettre sur les aveugles'' (Letter about the Blind) and his Encyclopédie
, better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis ...
had been banned in 1759. Prudence, therefore, may have dictated that he showed it only to a select few.
After the death of Diderot, a copy of the manuscript was sent to Russia, along with Diderot's other works. In 1765, Diderot had faced financial difficulties, and the Empress Catherine the Great of Russia had come to his help by buying out his library. The arrangement was quite a profitable one for both parties, Diderot becoming the paid librarian of his own book collection, with the task of adding to it as he saw fit, while the Russians enjoyed the prospect of one day being in possession of one of the most selectively stocked European libraries, not to mention Diderot's papers.
An appreciative Russian reader communicated the work to Schiller, who shared it with Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
who translated it into German in 1805. The first published French version was actually a translation back into French from Goethe's German version. This motivated Diderot's daughter to publish a doctored version of the manuscript. In 1890, the librarian Georges Monval found a copy of ''Rameau's Nephew'' by Diderot's own hand while browsing the bouquinistes along the Seine. This complete version is now in a vault in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
quotes ''Rameau's Nephew'' i
§522 and §545
of his Phenomenology of Spirit.
English translations
* Jacques Barzun and Ralph H. Bowen: ''Rameau's Nephew and Other Works'' (The Library of Liberal Arts, 1964)
* Leonard Tancock: ''Rameau's Nephew and D'Alembert's Dream'' (Penguin, 1966)
* Ian C. Johnston: ''Rameau's Nephew'' (2002)
*Margaret Mauldon: ''Rameau's Nephew and First Satire'' (Oxford, 2006)
*Kate E. Tunstall and Caroline Warman: ''Denis Diderot's 'Rameau's Nephew': A Multi-Media Edition'' (Open Book Publishers, 2014; revised 2015)
Footnotes
External links
*
"Multi-media bilingual edition
translation by KE Tunstall and C Warman; edition by Marian Hobson and Pascal Duc"
*
''Rameau's Nephew'' online text ABU
*
* Rameau's Nephew – Project Gutenber
PD
*
*
Le Neveu de Rameau
' is available on French Wikisource
Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...
.
{{Authority control
1805 French novels
Novels by Denis Diderot
French philosophical novels
Novels set in Paris
French satirical novels