Amelia - Voltaire

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Résumé :
This tragedy is founded on historical truth. A duke of Brittany, in the year 1387, commanded the lord of Bavalan to assassinate the constable of Clisson: Bavalan, the day after, told the duke it was done: the duke becoming sensible of the horror of his crime, and apprehensive of the fatal consequences of it, abandoned himself to the most violent despair: Bavalan, after giving him time to repent, at length told him that he had loved him well enough to disobey his orders. Wilder Publications is a green publisher. All of our books are printed to order. This reduces waste and helps us keep prices low while greatly reducing our impact on the environment.

Biographie:
Fran?ois-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 - 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltair , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets.[10] He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, and the French institutions of his day.
Fran?ois-Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of the five children of Fran?ois Arouet (1649-1722), a lawyer who was a minor treasury official, and his wife, Marie Marguerite Daumard (c. 1660-1701), whose family was on the lowest rank of the French nobility.[11] Some speculation surrounds Voltaire's date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the illegitimate son of a nobleman, Gu?rin de Rochebrune or Roquebrune.[12] Two of his older brothers-Armand-Fran?ois and Robert-died in infancy, and his surviving brother Armand and sister Marguerite-Catherine were nine and seven years older, respectively.[13] Nicknamed Zozo by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with Fran?ois de Castagn?re, abb? de Ch?teauneuf [fr], and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mother's cousin, standing as godparents.[14] He was educated by the Jesuits at the Coll?ge Louis-le-Grand (1704-1711), where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric;[15] later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English.[16]
By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, who wanted him to become a lawyer.[17] Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father found out, he sent Voltaire to study law, this time in Caen, Normandy. But the young man continued to write, producing essays and historical studies. Voltaire's wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the marquis de Ch?teauneuf [fr], the brother of Voltaire's godfather.[18] At The Hague, Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer (known as 'Pimpette').[18] Their affair, considered scandalous, was discovered by de Ch?teauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year.

Sommaire:
Voltaire's Amelia is a historical tragedy of love, loyalty, political power, and fatal conflict in medieval Brittany. Founded on events surrounding a duke of Brittany in 1387, the play brings Voltaire's dramatic intelligence to a world of noble ambition, courtly danger, private feeling, and public consequence. As personal devotion collides with authority and violence, the drama reveals how rulers, families, and lovers can be trapped by honor, fear, and political necessity. Published in the dramatic works section of the 1901 English-language Works of Voltaire, in William F. Fleming's translation, Amelia belongs to the side of Voltaire too often overshadowed by Candide and his philosophical writings: Voltaire the dramatist. The same Enlightenment mind that attacked fanaticism, cruelty, and tyranny in prose also worked through tragedy, using historical settings to test conscience, justice, loyalty, and the abuses of power. For readers interested in French drama, Enlightenment literature, historical tragedy, medieval Brittany, and Voltaire beyond his best-known satires, Amelia offers a compact but serious example of his theatrical work. It is a useful title for collections of classic drama, French literature, historical plays, and the broader literary world of eighteenth-century Europe....