Rameau's Nephew by Denis Diderot

First published: 1805; written 1761-1774; complete French edition, 1891 (English translation, 1897)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Philosophical

Time of plot: 1761

Locale: Paris

Principal characters

• Jean-François Rameau, the nephew of the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, also He
• Denis Diderot, the author, also Myself

The Story:

Myself and He first discuss geniuses. Myself stresses their benefit to the larger society and future generations, but He berates them for personal flaws with which they harm themselves and those around them—they would be better off, He avers, amassing a fortune in business so they can live splendidly and pay buffoons such as him to make them laugh and procure girls for them. He concedes that He is vexed at lacking genius himself and declares that He would like to be someone else, on the chance of being one. He also remarks that He loves to hear discreditable things about geniuses—it lets him bear his mediocrity more easily.

At this point, He begins singing famous songs He wishes that He composed, and He details the good life that fame and fortune would afford him—a fine house, good food and wine, pretty women, a gaggle of flatterers, falling asleep with the gentle hum of praise in his ears. This alluring vision soon gives way to austere reality, however, for He was banished by his former patron. Rameau acknowledges that he himself is a foolish, lazy, impudent, greedy ne’er-do-well, but he adds that those with whom he lives like him precisely because of those qualities. He is their buffoon, their great greedy boob. In their mediocrity, they need someone to despise.

Myself advises Rameau either to apologize to his patron or to be courageous enough to be poor. That latter idea does not appeal to Rameau because there are so many wealthy fools to exploit. He admits self-contempt, but only for not making more lucrative use of his God-given talent for flattery, bootlicking, and seducing bourgeois daughters for his master.

Myself, distressed by these frank avowals of turpitude and perverted feelings, seeks to change the subject. Talk shifts to music (with mime of violin and keyboard) and education, but He discloses scams of the music tutoring trade and goes on to assert that such “idioms” are common to all professions and are the means by which restitution is achieved. Should He gain wealth, he would be happy to disperse it by gorging, gambling, wenching, and maintaining a whole troop of flatterers.

“You would certainly be doing honor to human nature,” Myself dryly remarks. “Openly or no, most think as I do,” He retorts. He dismisses patriotism (there are no countries, only tyrants and slaves), aiding friends (gratitude is a burden), even the devotion to the education of one’s children. Myself, while admitting delight in sensual pleasures, says that even more he likes solving problems, reading good books, instructing his children, doing his duty. While he would give all to have written a great work, better still would be to rehabilitate the Huguenot Calas (Voltaire’s great legal victory over Church and monarchy).

Rameau wants none of Myself’s kind of happiness, finding it strange and rare (and adding that the virtuous are ill-humored). It is easier to follow one’s natural vices, so congenial to French people and their little needs. Myself again suggests that He hurry back to his former patron, but He reveals a new motive: pride. He is quite willing to be abject, but at his pleasure, not under duress. He also tells more of the grim situation in “our house,” which includes a grouchy master (the financier Bertin) and a mistress who is a stupid, second-rate actor growing fat, as well as fallen poets and despised musicians who form a mob of shameful toadies eager to tear down all that succeeds. He also details the faux pas—a brash quip about the hierarchy of freeloaders at Bertin’s table—that led to his expulsion. The passage betrays that He wants both the benefits of being a parasite and the pleasure of feeling superior to his benefactors. Asked if he spreads malicious gossip about them, He replies that they should expect as much—would you blame a tiger that bites off a hand thrust into its cage? Asked why He is so open about his vices, He reveals that He wants admiration for sublimity in wickedness, and He describes in admiring detail a man who cleverly robbed and betrayed a Jew.

Again horrified, Myself shifts the subject to a lengthy discussion of French versus Italian new music, which elicits Rameau’s most elaborate singing pantomime, a jumble of airs, emotions, and orchestral instruments. Startled chess players and passersby watch the spectacle of a man possessed. Myself wonders why a person so sensitive to refinements in music is so insensible to virtue, and he asks what Rameau wants for his own son. Rameau, a fatalistic and passive parent, hopes that the boy will learn the “golden art” of averting disgrace, shame, and the penalties of the law, but he seems unconcerned about giving his son direction. Myself observes that should the boy grow up uniting infant reasoning with adult passion, he might well strangle his father and sleep with his mother.

Asked why, for all his understanding of music, he never created a great work, Rameau blames his star, the low-grade people around him, and need, which forces him to take positions vis-à-vis his superiors. As He says, the needy man does not walk like the rest; he skips, twists, cringes, and crawls. While He contends that all must take positions, Myself declares that a philosopher such as Diogenes, who mastered his desires, does not. Rameau replies that he wants good food, bed, clothes, rest, and much else that he would rather owe to kindness than to toil. Myself insists that He overlooks the cost. Undeterred and uninstructed, He declares cheerfully that he who laughs last laughs best.

Bibliography

Curran, Andrew. Sublime Disorder: Physical Monstrosity in Diderot’s Universe. Oxford, England: Voltaire Foundation, 2001. Examines Diderot’s fascination with anatomical monstrosity and analyzes how he represents the physically grotesque in his novels and other works. Includes bibliography and index.

Doolittle, James. Rameau’s Nephew: A Study of Diderot’s “Second Satire.” Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1960. An insightful, reflective study of Diderot’s most famous creative work. Relies heavily on the text itself and is free of the critical jargon and interpretive excesses of some later analyses.

Fellows, Otis. Diderot. Boston: Twayne, 1977. A sympathetic, clear introduction to Diderot’s life and work. Relying heavily on earlier scholarship, Fellows reports varied interpretive views of Diderot’s major writings.

Furbank, Philip Nicholas. Diderot: A Critical Biography. London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1992. Emphasizes Diderot’s literary works, particularly his fiction, and cites lengthy passages from his correspondence to clarify the issues that absorbed the philosopher. Furbank’s interpretations make use of contemporary literary theory.

Goodden, Angelica. Diderot and the Body. Oxford, England: Legenda, 2001. A study of Diderot that focuses on his portrayal of the body. Examines Diderot’s fiction and other works to describe his ideas about the relationship of the body to the mind, anatomy, ethical extensions of the body, sensuality, sexuality, and other concerns.

Rex, Walter E. Diderot’s Counterpoints: The Dynamics of Contrariety in His Major Works. Oxford, England: Voltaire Foundation, 1998. Examines Diderot’s works in relation to his era, including analysis of Rameau’s Nephew. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Villena-Alvarez, Juanita. The Allegory of Literary Representation as Hybrid in Corneille’s “L’Illusion comique,” Diderot’s “Le Neveu de Rameau,” and Arrabal’s “La Nuit est aussi un soleil.” New York: Peter Lang, 1997. Compares Rameau’s Nephew to two other French works that Villena-Alvarez defines as “hybrid,” or works containing elements of “differentiation, mutation, and creation.”

Wilson, Arthur. Diderot. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. A comprehensive study of Diderot, richly detailed and absorbing. Treats the man and his social world with assurance and subtle judgment. Describes Diderot’s courage in going ahead with his Encyclopédie (1751-1772) even after others deserted the project.