Jacques le fataliste et son maître in Bloomington, MN

Jacques the fatalist and his master is a philosophical dialogue (between Jacques and his master) of Denis Diderot whose writing extends from 1765 until the death of the latter in 1784. The work appears initially serialized in the Correspondence Literary Melchior Grimm between 1778 and 1780. It was the subject of many posthumous editions, the first in France in 1796. Before this publication, Jacques the fatalist will be known in Germany thanks, in particular, to the translations of Schiller (partial translation in 1785) and Mylius (1792). This complex novel, disconcerting and confusing by its digressions - undoubtedly the work of Diderot most commented - draws partly its inspiration in Life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman of Laurence Sterne, published some years ago (1759-1763). Jacques, who travels in the company of his master, possesses a personality more complex than that of a valet of comedy: he is talkative but also somewhat philosopher ("a kind of philosopher") and it is his fatalism that he owes his nickname. To fill the boredom, he promises his master to tell him the rest of his love affairs. But this narrative is constantly interrupted either by his master, by external interventions or incidents, or by autonomous "stories" replacing the initial narrative, or by discussions between the narrator and the reader.