Journal des sçavans... (1698-...)
Les Oeuvres de M. Bensserade... (1698)
La Vie de Scaramouche... (1699)
An Essay Towards An History of Dancing... (1712)
Histoire générale de la danse... (1724)
La danse ancienne... (1754)
Encyclopédie... (1751-1772)
Critical Observations on the Art of Dancing... (1770)
Lettres et entretiens sur la danse... (1824)
With L’Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, Denis Diderot set out to gather the breadth and diversity of human knowledge. Compiling and producing this print collection for the public took over 20 years, and in its first form, the edition comprises 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of illustrations.
Early in the Encylopédie , Diderot explains his organization of this collection in a schema called “ Système Figuré des Connoissances Humaines ,” where he demonstrates the interrelation of all that is known. He divides knowledge along three main categories, “Mémoire, Raison, and Imagination”— categories drawn from epistemological models in philosophy, the most recent of which was that of René Descartes. In the third category, which is by far the smallest of the three, one finds the arts, including theater.
Although the schema suggests that little social or intellectual recognition was given to theater, the contents of the Encyclopédie demonstrate the contrary. In fact, there is compelling evidence of the important role of theater in French society. For example, the name “Molière” appears 134 times in the Encyclopédie under articles ranging from “Caractère,” “Comédie,” and “Rire,” to “Tactique,” “Tutoyment,” and “Vrai.” The wide range of topics in which authors of the Encyclopédie make allusion to Molière suggests several things, namely that Molière has an important place in French cultural history, and that theater, as well as literature and the other arts, illustrates and perhaps even influences a great variety of cultural phenomena.
Full Text By Ryan Tracy (BA 2006)