Page "Denis Diderot" Paragraph 29

Diderot was above all things interested in the life of individuals.

He did not care about the abstract life of the race, but the incidents of individual character, the fortunes of a particular family, the relations of real and concrete motives in this or that special case.

He was delighted with the enthusiasm of a born casuist in curious puzzles of right and wrong, and in devising a conflict between the generalities of ethics and the conditions of an ingeniously contrived practical dilemma.

Diderot's interest expressed itself in didactic and sympathetic form.

However, in two of his most remarkable pieces, this interest is not sympathetic, but ironic.

Jacques le fataliste ( written in 1773, but not published until 1792 in German and 1796 in French ) is similar to Tristram Shandy and The Sentimental Journey.

His dialogue Le Neveu de Rameau ( Rameau's Nephew ) is a " farce-tragedy " reminiscent of the Satires of Horace.

A favorite classical author of Diderot's, Horace's words Vertumnis, quotquot sunt, natus iniquis are quoted at the top of the Nephew.

Diderot's intention in writing the dialogue is disputed ; whether it is merely a satire on contemporary manners, or a reduction of the theory of self-interest to an absurdity, or the application of irony to the ethics of ordinary convention, or a mere setting for a discussion about music, or a vigorous dramatic sketch of a parasite and a human original.

Whatever its intent, it is a remarkable conversation, representing an era that held the art of conversation in the highest regard.