Œuvres de 1760 (I)

Author: Voltaire

Volume: 50

Series: Œuvres complètes de Voltaire

Volume Editors: Jean Balcou, Colin Duckworth, W. D. Howarth

Publication Date: 1986

Pages: 564

ISBN: 978-0-7294-0334-4

Price: £105


About

This volume contains works from 1760 and showcases two sides to Voltaire. Le Droit du seigneur is a comic drama featuring rakes, illegitimate heiresses, and true love, and takes as its starting point the abuse of power represented by the custom of jus primae noctis. By contrast, L’Ecossaise and the Anecdotes sur Fréron are artefacts of the intellectual war between the philosophes and the anti-philosophes. Elie Catherine Fréron, the editor of the influential L’Année littéraire journal, was a formidable opponent of Voltaire and launched stinging attacks on Enlightenment ideas. In L’Ecossaise, Voltaire employs the form of the sentimental comedy to undermine Fréron, who is caricatured as the character ‘Frélon’ – the Wasp. In the Anecdotes sur Fréron, Voltaire swats the Wasp in a satirical salvo of caustic wit.

Table of contents

Le Droit du seigneur (critical edition by W. D. Howarth)

L’Ecossaise (critical edition by Colin Duckworth)

Anecdotes sur Fréron (édition critique par Jean Balcou)

Voltaire Foundation

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