Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T16:49:21.959Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Voltaire’s masks: theatre and theatricality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2009

Nicholas Cronk
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

In 1944, on the 250th anniversary of Voltaire's birth, the poet Paul Valéry praised him as 'a man who tried his hand at every literary genre, who had a go at everything, tragedy, epigrams, history, epic, short fiction, essays, and that vast correspondence' ('un homme qui s'est essaye dans tous les genres, qui a touché à tout, tragédie, épigramme, histoire, épopée, contes, essais, et cette correspondance innombrable'). Valéry's account recalls that of the eighteenth-century actor-cum-historian Claude Villaret, who as early as 1759 sought to explain the success of 'this ingenious and sublime author' ('cet auteur ingénieux et sublime'): 'Superior in almost every literary genre, it is above all through the beauty in the detail that he is able to captivate his readers and enchant his audiences' ('Supérieur presqu'en tout genre de littérature, c'est surtout par les beautés de détail qu'il sait trouver l'art d'attacher ses lecteurs et de charmer les spectateurs').

Perhaps the most surprising, and certainly the most telling, feature of both of these appreciations of Voltaire the polymath is the specific mention of his work as a dramatist. Surprising, because today perhaps the most common image of Voltaire is that of the satirical story-teller. We have forgotten that his fame in his lifetime, both in France and abroad, was largely based on his reputation as a dramatist, and that the theatre occupies a substantial place in his vast output. Whereas in the story Le Taureau blanc (1772) the character Mambrés, usually seen as an image of Voltaire, claims that 'telling stories is the only way to get on in the world' ('ce n'est que par des contes qu'on réussit dans le monde'), Voltaire himself, if the word of one of his secretaries is to be believed, thought that science, history, theology and the writing of fiction were whimsical pastimes compared with the serious work of writing plays.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×