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Part of the book: Voltaire's Disciple

Christopher Todd

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 7

Modern Humanities Research Association

EnlightenmentFrenchDramaopen

Abstract.  Although events in La Harpe's life led him to become a friend of the Catholic revival during which Chateaubriand, to name only one, was pleased to have his support, he is rightly best remembered as a disciple of Voltaire who rose to eminence as a critic through his wholehearted acceptance of the latter's ideas. As we shall see, everything in the man and in his work is deeply marked by the influence of the patriarch. While he considered Voltaire to be the supreme example of man's failure to find a truly universal genius in the arts, he too attempted to follow the latter's example of diversity: 'La littérature, telle que je l'ai conçue, comprend tout ce que les Anciens attribuaient au grammairien, au rhéteur, au philosophe, et n'exclut que les sciences physiques, les sciences exactes et les arts et métiers'. He sought fame, not only as a critic, but as a playwright, poet, orator, translator and pamphleteer.

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