Dependency, Corruption, and Aesthetics in Denis Diderot’s Le neveu de Rameau

Denis Diderot’s posthumously published satireLe neveu de Rameau(probably written between 1761-1772) displays a complex network of references to some of the most difficult years, 1751-1759, in the history of the great Enlightenment projectL’Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des metiers, of which Diderot was co-founder and chief editor. The 1750s constituted a period of ideological tension and increasing political paranoia in France, and from being a project of national prestige, the Encyclopédie was by then considered a threat to the religious, social, and political order ofl’ancien regime.As was announced in Louis XV’s