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Synopsis
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.
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From the Back Cover
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.
About the Author
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.
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- PublisherPenguin Classics
- Publication date1974
- ISBN 10 0140443002
- ISBN 13 9780140443004
- BindingPaperback
- LanguageEnglish
- Number of pages192
- Rating
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Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. 'You can leave a forest, but you can never leave a cloister; you are free in the forest, but you are a slave in the cloister.' Diderot's The Nun (La Religieuse) is the seemingly true story of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent and take holy orders. A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing insight into the effects of forced vocations and the unnatural life of the convent. A succes de scandale at the end of the eighteenth century, it has attracted and unsettled readers ever since. For Diderot's novel is not simply a story of a young girl with a bad habit; it is also a powerfully emblematic fable about oppression and intolerance. This new translation includes Diderot's all-important prefatory material, which he placed, disconcertingly, at the end of the novel, and which turns what otherwise seems like an exercise in realism into what is now regarded as a masterpiece of proto-modernist fiction. Solid binding. Moderate edgewear on the boards. Some pages are falling out. Moderate shelf wear. Please note the image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item. Book. Seller Inventory # 123584266
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The Nun
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ISBN 10: 0140443002
ISBN 13: 9780140443004
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