Diderot Denis - Rameaus nephew: and, First satire

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

RAMEAUS NEPHEW
AND
FIRST SATIRE

DENIS DIDEROT (17131784) was born at Langres in Champagne, the son of a master cutler who wanted him to follow a career in the Church. He attended the best Paris schools, took a degree in theology in 1735 but turned away from religion and tried his hand briefly at law before deciding to make his way as a translator and writer. In 1746, he was invited to provide a French version of Ephraim Chamberss Cyclopaedia (1728). The project became the Encyclopaedia (Encyclopdie, 175172), intended to be a compendium of human knowledge in all fields but also the embodiment of the new philosophic spirit of intellectual enquiry. As editor-in-chief, Diderot became the impresario of the French Enlightenment. But ideas were dangerous, and in 1749 Diderot was imprisoned for four months for publishing opinions judged contrary to religion and the public good. He became a star of the salons, where he was known as a brilliant conversationalist. He invented art criticism, and devised a new form of theatre which would determine the shape of European drama. But in private he pursued ideas of startling orginality in texts like Supplement to Bougainvilles Voyage (Supplment au Voyage de Bougainville) and DAlemberts Dream (Le Rve de dAlembert), which for the most part were not published until after his death. He anticipated DNA, Darwin, and modern genetics, but also discussed the human and ethical implications of biological materialism in fictionsThe Nun (La Religieuse), Rameaus Nephew (Le Neveu de Rameau), and Jacques the Fatalist (Jacques le fataliste)which seem more at home in our century than in his. His life, spent among books, was uneventful and he rarely strayed far from Paris. In 1773, though, he travelled to St Petersburg to meet his patron, Catherine II. But his hopes of persuading her to implement his philosophic ideas failed, and in 1774 he returned to Paris where he continued talking and writing until his death in 1784.

MARGARET MAULDON has worked as a translator since 1987. For Oxford Worlds Classics she has translated Zolas LAssommoir, Stendhals The Charterhouse of Parma, Maupassants Bel-Ami, Constants Adolphe, Huysmanss Against Nature (winner of the Scott Moncrieff prize for translation, 1999), and Flauberts Madame Bovary.

NICHOLAS CRONK is Director of the Voltaire Foundation and General Editor of The Complete Works of Voltaire, and Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford. For Oxford Worlds Classics he has edited Voltaires Letters concerning the English Nation and Rostands Cyrano de Bergerac.

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

DENIS DIDEROT

Translated by
MARGARET MAULDON

With an Introduction and Notes by
NICHOLAS CRONK

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Translation Margaret Mauldon, 2006
Appendix Christopher Wells, 2006
Editorial material Nicholas Cronk, 2006

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First published as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 2006

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Diderot, Denis, 17131784.
[Neveu de Rameau. English]
Rameaus nephew; and, First satire / Denis Diderot; translated by Margaret Mauldon;
with an introduction and notes by Nicholas Cronk.
p. cm. (Oxford worlds classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
I. Mauldon, Margaret. II. Cronk, Nicholas. III. Diderot, Denis, 17131784.
Satire premire. English. IV. Title. V. Title: First satire. VI. Series: Oxford worlds
classics (Oxford University Press)
PQ1979.A66E5 2006 848.508dc22 2006011792

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1

Man is said to be a Sociable Animal
(ADDISON)

Rameaus Nephewin French, Le Neveu de Rameauis a work of dazzling paradox, an exploration of the contradictions and complexities of man as sociable animal which is in every way unique. It is arguably the greatest work of the French Enlightenments greatest writer; yet it was unknown in the century in which it was written. Not one of Denis Diderots contemporaries mentions the text, and Diderot himself makes no clear reference to it in his private correspondence. Everything about the bookWhen was it written? Who was it written for? What is it about?remains tantalizingly uncertain. Even its publication is uniquely odd.

When Diderot died, the manuscript of this unpublished work passed with his other manuscripts to his daughter Mme de Vandeul and her husband; Diderots prudish son-in-law was apparently shocked by many of these works, and piously bowdlerized those in his care. Luckily, another set of manuscripts had been carefully copied for Catherine the Great, who, in an act of great enlightenment, had bought Diderots books and papers in 1765 in exchange for a pension paid during his lifetime. An autograph manuscript of