The Nun (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Diderot, Denis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140443002 ISBN 13: 9780140443004

Verlag: Penguin Classics, 1974

Inhaltsangabe

In 1758 Diderot's friend the Marquis de Croismare became interested in the cause célèbre of a nun who was appealing to be allowed to leave a Paris convent. Less than a year later, in an affectionate attempt to trick his friend, Diderot created this masterpiece - a fictitious set of desperate and pleading letters to the Marquis from a teenage girl forced into the nunnery because she is illegitimate. In these letters, the impressionable and innocent Suzanne Simonin describes the cruelty and abuse she has suffered in an institution poisoned by vicious gossip, intrigues, persecutions and deviance. Considered too subversive during Diderot's lifetime, The Nun first appeared in print in 1796 following the Revolution. Part gripping novel, part licentious portrayal of sexual fervour and part damning attack on oppressive religious institutions, it remains one of the most utterly original works of the many eighteenth-century.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Denis Diderot was born at Langres in eastern France in 1713. After graduating in Paris in 1732, he was nominally a law student for ten years, but was actually leading a precarious bohemian but studious existence. In the early 1740s he met three contemporaries who were of great significance to him and to the age: a'Alembert, Condillac and Rousseau, who assisted Diderot in the compilation of the Encyclopedie, which he worked on until its completion in 1773. Interested in the mind-body dichotomy, his work was a bold mixture of science and philosophy. He died in 1784.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Denis Diderot (1713-84), editor of the Encyclopedie and supreme figure of the Enlightenment, began writing The Nun as a practical joke.The joke got out of hand and resulted in one of the most remarkable novels of the eighteenth century. Through the story of a girl without a religious vocation, enclosed against her will in the unnatural environment of a convent, Diderot takes issue with misconceived Christianity in a social system where the civil law protects the persecutor and penalizes the victim. In an atmosphere intense with gossip, intrigues, favouritism, persecutions and pettiness, Diderot exposes the young nun to what he regards as the four great dangers of convent life: madness, the paralysing effect of a powerful saintly personality, sadistic cruelty, and febrile sexuality.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Classics
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1974
• ISBN 10: 0140443002
• ISBN 13: 9780140443004
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Sprache: Englisch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar