Fénelon in the Enlightenment: Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations

Fénelon in the Enlightenment: Traditions, Adaptations, and Variations
Author: Christoph Schmitt-Maaß
Publisher: Rodopi
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2014-10-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9401210640

François Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai (1651–1715) exerted a considerable influence on the development and spread of the Enlightenment. His most famous work, the Homeric novel Les Aventures de Télémaque, Fils d’Ulysse (1699), composed for the education of his pupil Duc de Bourgogne, was, after the Bible, the most widely read literary work in France throughout the eighteenth century. It was also translated and adapted into many other European languages. And yet oddly enough, the question as to why Fénelon’s ideas resonated over such a wide span of space and time has as yet found no coherent and comprehensive answer. By taking Fénelon’s intellectual influence as a matter of ‘cultural translation’, this anthology traces the reception of Fénelon and his multifaceted writings outside of France, and in doing so aims to enrich not only our understanding of the Enlightenment, but also of the thinker himself.

Maxims of the Saints

Maxims of the Saints
Author: Francois Fenelon
Publisher: Wyatt North Publishing, LLC
Total Pages: 57
Release: 2020-01-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1647980100

Maxims of the Saints is a collection of quotes by saints compiled by Francois Fenelon. In the late 17th century, Fenelon wrote Maxims of the Saints to support the beliefs of his friend Madame Guyon.

Fénelon

Fénelon
Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2020-02-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190079614

Fénelon is arguably one of the most neglected major philosophers of early modernity. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, and yet today even specialists rarely engage his work directly. This problem is particularly acute in the Anglophone world, where only a small fraction of Fénelon's vast and influential corpus has appeared in modern English translation. This collection of new translations of Fénelon's moral and political writings renders one of the leading voices of early modern philosophy accessible to English-language audiences. Reflecting the impressive breadth of Fenelon's thought, the volume includes work on topics ranging from education to literature to religion and statecraft. In the realm of political philosophy and ethics, Fénelon was an uncompromising critic of Louis XIV and absolutism, committed to reforming France's social, political and economic institutions. In the Enlightenment, he came to be celebrated as a pioneering theorist of education and rhetoric, a prescient student of economics and international relations, and a key voice in the philosophical debates among the heirs of Descartes - not to mention his fame as one of the seventeenth-century's most preeminent theologians and spiritualists and masters of French prose. With an extensive introduction to Fénelon's life and work, this volume is a critical resource for students and scholars of French history, political philosophy, economics, education, literature, and religion.