Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Fowler, James

Titel

The Best of all Possible Marriages: Voltaire and Frederick in Paméla

Ist Teil von

• French studies, 2013-10, Vol.67 (4), p.478-493

Ort / Verlag

Oxford: Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Quelle

Oxford Journals 2020 Humanities

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• A recent edition of Voltaire's Paméla (1750-53) by Jonathan Maffinson emphasizes that it exists 'on the border of truth and fiction, of openness and concealment'. In the first letter of Paméla, Voltaire describes a landscape of exceptional natural beauty, near Cleves; but he also reveals that in this case nature has been arranged according to human design. The only visible evidence of this is a statue of Minerva. Yet it turns out that, in a sense, 'all is art' here, for a former count of Nassau-Siegen had ordered the entire scene to be landscaped. Set within Paméla, this passage functions as a mise en abyme, for Voltaire's text too cultivates an artful appearance of naturalness. This article shows how the philosophe initially presents his text as a spontaneous 'fatras de prose et de vers', but cannot resist hinting at the art that subtends the whole. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]