La Religieuse (novel)

The nun ( the original title was in French La religieuse ) is a novel by Denis Diderot, who was known only by its publication in Germany, in France, the homeland of the author. Only after the text was published eight years after the death Diderot 1792 in Germany Friedrich Melchior Grimm in " Literary Correspondence ," he appeared under the title " La religieuse " in 1796 in Paris.

Background

Diderot was an admirer of the works of Samuel Richardson and much of the subject matter of the novel Clarissa or, The History of a Young Lady ( 1748) found its way into La Religieuse inspiring. As he worked on his novel Le Neveu de Rameau, Richardson died on July 4 in 1761. During his praise font, Éloge de Richardson (1760 ), he had praised him that he had raised the genre of the novel on a serious level.

Action

This literary work of Diderot was written in the genre of a real novel. Diderot tells the story of Suzanne Simonin, but omitted bays and does not differ in the sequence of actions. Denis Diderot had a sister Angélique Diderot (1720-1749) this was joined a Ursuline Order and died there at a young age in a state of mental confusion. Maybe it inspired this event to his work.

The nun Suzanne Simonin told in letters her life story. Of the parents, she is forced against her will to a life as a nun, as a befitting marriage the necessary funds missing, she was an illegitimate child of the former lover of her mother might have been. She hates the monastic life, although it occurs first in connection to a sympathetic matron, their love of freedom remains unabated. So it is under a new, fanatical and cruel abbess the target of reprisals and harassment by these and sisters. In three monasteries overall it is confronted with the power of conventions and money as well as hypocrisy and religious fanaticism.

Adaptations

The novel was filmed several times. With a screenplay by Jacques Rivette and Jean Gruault the subject under the original title Suzanne Simonin, la Religieuse de Diderot was filmed in 1966. The most important adaptation was directed by Jacques Rivette with Anna Karina in the role of Suzanne Simonin and Liselotte Pulver as their last Mother Superior. The film was nominated in 1966 for the film festival in Cannes for the Golden Palm. On October 31, 2013 came as the most recent adaptation under the German release title The nun, a film adaptation of Guillaume Nicloux in the cinemas.

Expenditure

Contemporary

• Denis Diderot: La religieuse. online edition in French. Project Gutenberg
• Denis Diderot: La Religieuse. Edited by Florence lottery, Paris, Flammarion, 2009.

Translations

• Denis Diderot: The Nun: novel of manners from the 18th century. Novi Sad edited and arranged by Michael Holzinger. First edition: 1796 Paris printing of the first German translation appeared anonymously: .. Zurich 1797 textual basis was the output: Denis Diderot: The Nun. Novel of manners from the 18th century. German by Wilhelm Thal (1867-1907), Third Edition, Stuttgart: Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, ( Library of the 17th and 18th centuries ). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013, ISBN 1-4823-9781-1