Rameau's Nephew by Denis Diderot (Book Analysis)


Book Description

Unlock the more straightforward side of Rameau’s Nephew with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of Rameau’s Nephew by Denis Diderot, which consists of a long conversation between an unnamed philosopher and the feckless nephew of a renowned composer. As their discussion shifts from topic to topic, revealing the fundamental incompatibilities between their respective worldviews, the nephew occasionally also shows off his talent as a musician by giving brief performances at the café where they have met, leaving the philosopher bemused by his refusal to give up his indolent ways and embrace his musical gifts. Denis Diderot was one of the leading writers of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, and wrote novels, plays, philosophical dialogues and essays. Find out everything you need to know about Rameau’s Nephew in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time. See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!




Rameau's Nephew


Book Description

18th Century Frenchman Diderot uses a fictional conversation between two men to criticize those who argued against the Enlightenment. As his prior works of political opinion had caused his imprisonment, Diderot was especially careful to craft "Rameau's Nephew" in such a way to not face further trouble.




The New Southern Gentleman


Book Description

"Daniel Randolph Deal is a Southern aristocrat, having the required bloodline, but little of the nobility. A man resistant to the folly of ethics, he prefers a selective, self-indulgent morality. He is a confessed hedonist, albeit responsibly so."--Back cover




Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely


Book Description

Best Book of the Year – Kirkus Reviews A spirited biography of the prophetic and sympathetic philosopher who helped build the foundations of the modern world. Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world’s first comprehensive Encyclopédie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity–for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality. One of Diderot’s most attentive readers during his lifetime was Catherine the Great, who not only supported him financially, but invited him to St. Petersburg to talk about the possibility of democratizing the Russian empire. In this thematically organized biography, Andrew S. Curran vividly describes Diderot’s tormented relationship with Rousseau, his curious correspondence with Voltaire, his passionate affairs, and his often iconoclastic stands on art, theater, morality, politics, and religion. But what this book brings out most brilliantly is how the writer's personal turmoil was an essential part of his genius and his ability to flout taboos, dogma, and convention.




Catherine & Diderot


Book Description

In a dual biography crafted around the famous encounter between the French philosopher who wrote about power and the Russian empress who wielded it with great aplomb, Robert Zaretsky invites us to reflect on the fraught relationship between politics and philosophy, and between a man of thought and a woman of action.




Rameau's Nephew and First Satire


Book Description

In Diderot's brilliant and witty dialogue two acquaintances discuss art, music, education and society. A key work of the French Enlightenment, in this sparkling new translation it is paired with Diderot's First Satire, providing context for Rameau's Nephew, the 'second satire'. - ;'unless you know everything, you really know nothing' Diderot's brilliant and witty dialogue begins with a chance encounter in a Paris caf--eacute--; between two acquaintances. Their talk ranges broadly across art, music, education, and the contemporary scene, as the nephew of composer Rameau, amoral and bohemian, alternately shocks and amuses the moral, bourgeois figure of his interlocutor. Exuberant and highly entertaining, the dialogue exposes the corruption of society in Diderot's characteristic philosophical exploration. The debates of the French Enlightenment speak to us vividly in this sparkling new translation, which also includes the First Satire , a related work that provides the context for Rameau's Nephew, Diderot's 'second satire'. -




Dangling Man


Book Description

Expecting to be inducted into the army, Joseph has given up his job and carefully prepared for his departure to the battlefront. When a series of mix-ups delays his induction, he finds himself facing a year of idleness. Dangling Man is his journal, a wonderful account of his restless wanderings through Chicago's streets, his musings on the past, his psychological reaction to his inactivity while war rages around him, and his uneasy insights into the nature of freedom and choice.




The Skeptic's Walk


Book Description

This is a Divine Comedy or Pilgrim's Progress for the post-religious age. Finding himself on a quest through the forest of life towards the general rendez-vous at the end, our hero journeys first on the path of religion and faith, then the path of the philosophers where debate and ideas reign, and finally the path of worldly pursuits and pleasure. Along the way he dodges inquisitors, raging fanatics, insane philosophers, faithless lovers, and scheming social climbers. Truly a neglected classic. As Diderot said, "even if you are not amused, you may still benefit from it."This third edition was revised in 2018.




Diderot: Political Writings


Book Description

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was one of the most significant figures of the French enlightenment. His political writings cover the period from the first volume of the Encyclopedie (1751), of which he was principal editor, to the third edition of Raynal's Histoire des Deux Indes (1780), one of the most widely read books of the pre-revolutionary period. This volume contains the most important of Diderot's articles for the Encyclopedie, a substantial number of his contributions to the Histoire, the complete texts of his Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville, one of his most visionary works, and his Observations sur le Nakaz, a precise and detailed political work translated here into English for the first time. The editors' introduction sets these works in their context and shows the underlying coherence of Diderot's thought. A chronology of events and a bibliography are included as further aids to the reader.




Diderot


Book Description

Author of that inexhaustibly strange masterpiece Rameau's Nephew, Denis Diderot (1713-84) was also a dramatist, a speculative philosopher, the founder of modern art criticism and a tireless correspondent; he has also been called the most talkative man of his generation. His genius was profoundly subversive, and he spent much of his working life under the threat of exile. The son of a cutler, Diderot had an empathy with trades, tools and machinery that flowered magnificently in some of his contributions to the great Encyclopedie, which he edited with d'Alembert and published over a period of some twenty years. Diderot's range of contacts was prodigious: a close friend of Rousseau, Grimm and d'Alembert, a familiar figure in the literary salons of Paris, he also met and corresponded with Hume, Garrick and Laurence Sterne. It was the support of Catherine the Great (as her agent, Diderot in effect laid the foundations of the Hermitage collection) that led to the most extraordinary episode in an astonishing life: at the age of sixty Diderot travelled to St Petersburg where he drew up outline plans for the conversion of Russia into an ideal republic. P. N. Furbank's sympathetic and probing analysis of Diderot's work and influence was first published in 1992 and won a Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.