Jacques the fatalist and his master

Your Jacques is a tasteless mishmash of things that happen, some of them true, others made up, written without style and served up like a dog's breakfast.' Jacques the Fatalist is Diderot's answer to the problem of existence. If human beings are determined by their genes and their environment, how can they claim to be free to want or do anything? Where are Jacques and his Master going? Are they simply occupying space, living mechanically until they die, believing erroneously that they are in charge of their Destiny? Diderot intervenes to cheat our expectations of what fiction should be and do, and behaves like a provocative, ironic and unfailingly entertaining master of revels who finally show why Fate is not to be equated with doom. In the introduction to this brilliant new translation, David Coward explains the philosophical basis of Diderot's fascination with Fate and shows why Jacques the Fatalist pioneers techniques of fiction which, two centuries on, novelists still regard as experimental. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more

Art · Art history · Destiny (ISS module · Globe · Literature · Mythology · Revels · Scholarship · Style (visual arts · French Literature and Criticism · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought · 18.25 · 843/.5 · Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author) · Critique et interprétation · Denis Diderot (1713-1781) · Denis Diderot (1713-1784) · Diderot, Denis, 1713-1781. Jacques le fataliste et son maitre · Fate and fatalism · Fate and fatalism in fiction · Fiction · Fiction, general · Free will and determinism · Free will and determinism in fiction · French fiction · General · Literary styles & movements - fiction · Ontology · Ontology in fiction · Pq1979.a65 e5 1986 · Pq1979.a65 e5 1999 · Simone LeCointre