Selected Writings on Art and Literature [antikvár]

FOREWORDIn the dual function of editor and translator of this selection I have tried to reflect the variety of view^s and styles to be found in Diderot's w^ritings on aesthetic matters. This has not presented any great problem as far as selection goes, except perhaps for the Salons, where some interesting material has had to be rejected. The difficulties arose in finding a style, or styles, which would adequately reflect the vagaries of Diderot's own. It is not just that some works, hke the Conversations on 'The Natural Son', seemed to require a more formal style than, say, The Paradox of the Actor, but that some of Diderot's writing can sound quite modern and racy whereas other passages, often only a page or two away, are irrevocably dated, both in subject-matter and expression. I have tried to vary the style of the translation in a way which reflects these contrasts without becoming too incongruously modern on the one hand or too quaintly eighteenth-century on the other. As for the further problem of the technical language in the Salons, I have tried to use a vocabulary which conveys Diderot's considerable expertise without creating difficulties for those with less.For the bulk of the information given in the introductions and the notes I am indebted to the painstaking work of past researchers and editors. Finding out the facts is an unglamorous and often unrewarding occupation, but in the long run this kind of research is more valuable than those flashy interpretive studies which attract attention for a while and are then forgotten.