Performing Reason: Narrative and Philosophy in Voltaire’s “L’Homme aux quarante écus”
Keywords:
philosophy, narrativity, allegory, identity, Enlightenment, VoltaireAbstract
This article explores the role of narrativity in Voltaire’s thought through an analysis of one of his contes philosophiques, “L’Homme aux quarante écus.” This story, it is argued, unfolds as an allegory of the Enlightenment in which the protagonist gradually acquires a narrative identity for himself. The fact that this identity is grounded in textual heterogeneity rather than coherence proclaims internal difference to be an essential condition for Voltaire’s view of the Enlightenment as an ongoing project whose meaning resists being fixed. Conversely, Voltaire’s conception of the Enlightenment helps explain his choice of the story as a medium for “performing” reason in narrative action.References
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