Boucquey Thierry (General Editor). Encyclopedia Of World Writers. 3 volumes
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
In truth, Novalis was more than a dreamy poet.
He studied philosophy, history, literature, and law,
and privately pursued interests in mathematics,
science, and language theory. He wrote on reli-
gious and philosophical issues as well as poetry
and prose. Some of his ideas were quite scandalous
to contemporaries, leading to heavy editing when
the first edition of his collected works was pub-
lished in 1802.
Novalis’s ideas about philosophy and science,
influenced by SCHILLER and GOETHE, gained less at-
tention than his theories of poetry as a combina-
tion of inspired genius and meticulous craft. Of his
writings, the works most studied today are two po-
etic compositions, Hymns to the Night and Spiri-
tual Songs, and two unfinished novels, Henry of
Ofterdingen and The Novices of Saïs, all composed
between 1799 and 1801.
Though Novalis had practical concerns in sci-
ence, medicine, and mathematics, which surface in
his fiction, he is best remembered for the mystical,
brooding spirit captured in Hymns to the Night
and so characteristic of the romantic age:
Far off lies the world
With its motley of pleasures.
Elsewhere doth the Light
Pitch its airy encampment.
What if it never returned . . .?
English Versions of Works by Novalis
Henry von Ofterdingen. Translated by Palmer Hilty.
Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1990.
Novalis: Hymns to the Night. Translated by Dick Hig-
gins. New York: McPherson & Co., 1998.
Works about Novalis
O’Brien, William Arctander. Novalis: Signs of Revolu-
tion. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994.
Stoljar, Margaret Mahony, trans. Novalis: Philosophi-
cal Writings. Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1997.
novel, epistolary (1700s)
The epistolary novel, which enjoyed its greatest
popularity during the late 18th century, is a genre
of prose fiction that uses letters of correspondence
to narrate a story. Practically more than any other
fictional genre, the epistolary novel calls for the
reader’s participation in interpreting and under-
standing the letters that create the narrative.
Samuel
RICHARDSON’S
three novels—Pamela
(1740), Clarissa (1748), and The History of Sir
Charles Grandison (1754)—opened the doors to
the creative and psychological possibilities of fic-
tion writing. Richardson created distinctively dif-
ferent voices for each of his characters and explored
their emotional states in traumatic situations. His
characters reveal as much in their unconscious
emotions as their consciously stated feelings and
thoughts. Richardson claimed that his epistolary
novels were morally instructive, to be read as much
for self-education as for entertainment.
Richardson is often referred to as the inventor
of the modern novel, and his influence had far-
reaching effects. In England and France, Charles de
MONTESQUIEU, Françoise de
GRAFFIGNY, Jean-
Jacques ROUSSEAU, and Pierre-Choderlos de LACLOS
all wrote epistolary novels influenced by Richard-
son, as did Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE, whose
The Sorrows of Young Werther became a best-seller
in Germany.
Other writers of the epistolary novel who fol-
lowed or were influenced by Richardson include
Henry Fielding (1707–54), whose Joseph Andrews
(1742) is a parody of Richardson’s Pamela; To b i a s
Smollett (1721–71), whose masterpiece Humphry
Clinker (1771) is a collection of comedic letters
shared among members of a traveling party; and
Laurence Sterne (1713–68), whose novel The Life
and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1760–67) takes
the epistolary form to new heights in its use of psy-
chological time, rather than chronological, as a
framework for storytelling.
By the early 19th century, the epistolary novel
no longer dominated fiction, but the exploration
novel, epistolary 207
of characters’ thoughts and emotions, to which the
epistolary novel gave birth, live on today in every
aspect of modern fiction.
See also PRÉVOST; SÉVIGNÉ.
English Versions of Epistolary Novels
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. The Sorrows of Young
Werther, and Selected writings. Translated by
Catherine Hutter. New York: New American Li-
brary, 1982.
Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa, or the History of a
Young Lady. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
Works about Epistolary Novels
Black, F. G. The Epistolary Novel in the Late Eighteenth
Century. Eugene: University of Oregon Press,
1940.
Jensen, Katharine Ann. Writing Love: Letters, Women,
and the Novel in France, 1605–1776. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1995.
208 novel, epistolary
209
O
Occom, Samson (1723–1792) missionary,
clergyman, schoolmaster, hymnist
Samson Occom, a Moghegan Indian, was influ-
enced by evangelism during the “Great Awaken-
ing” and converted to Christianity in 1739. From
1743 to 1747 he was educated by Eleazar Whee-
lock, who later became the first president of Dart-
mouth College. Through missionary work, Occom
offered an alternative spiritual vision for eastern
Indians in 18th-century America. He mastered
Latin, dressed like a Puritan, and served as a Chris-
tian missionary to the Indians, using native lan-
guages and traditions in support of his ministry.
White contemporaries referred to Occom as the
“Pious Mohegan,” “Indian Preacher,” “Red Christ-
ian,” and “Praying Indian.”
In 1749 Occom became schoolmaster and min-
ister to the Montauk tribe and later the Oneida
tribe in the areas of New York and Connecticut. As
a Native American, he was able to gain the trust
and respect of his students. In contrast to the white
missionaries, Occom did not believe that Chris-
tianity and Western culture should replace Indian
culture. He used Indian culture to teach Christian-
ity and the English language alongside native tra-
ditions. He taught a phonetic approach to learning
English, using letter recognition games and flash
cards fashioned of paper and cedar chips.
Although Occom did not have formal theological
training, he was ordained by the Long Island Pres-
bytery in 1759 because of his success as a missionary.
In 1765 he visited England and helped to raise
money that was later used to establish Dartmouth
College as a college for Native-American students.
English Versions of Works by
Samson Occom
An Account of the Montauk Indians, on Long Island,
Massachusetts Historical Collections (ser. 1, 10
(1809): 105–111.
Samson Occom, Mohegan: Collected Writings by the
Founder of Native American Literature. Edited by
Joanne Brooks. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004.
Works about Samson Occom
De Loss Love, William. Samson Occom and the Chris-
tian Indians of New England. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syra-
cuse University Press, 1999.
Peyer, Bernd. The Tutor’d Mind: Indian Missionary-
Writers in Antebellum America. Amherst: Univer-
sity of Massachusetts Press, 1997.
Olivares, Miguel de (1675–1768) historian
Born at Chillán in Chile, Father Miguel de Olivares
wrote Historia militar, civil y sagrada de lo acaecido
en la conquista y pacificación del Reino de Chile.
This chronicle, not published until 1864, remains
the best source of information about indigenous
Chilean customs during the period of Spanish col-
onization. His other notable work is Breve noticia
de la provincia de la Compañía de Jesús en Chile
1593–1736, published in 1870. Unfortunately, no
English translations of his work are in print.
Olivares entered the Jesuit order, became a mis-
sionary, and began his travels in 1701 to cities in
Chile, including Quillota, Polpaico, Tiltil, and Li-
mache. From 1712 to 1720,he was the director of the
Calubco and Nahuelhuapi missions. Ten years later,
he witnessed the earthquake that destroyed the city
of Concepción. In the course of his travels, Olivares
studied the Jesuit archives and, beginning in 1736,
while in Santiago, began to compile his history.
From 1740 to 1758, Olivares served in the Arau-
cania missions. Like the earlier Jesuit historian of
Chile, Diego de
ROSALES, he learned the language of
the natives and continued writing.
When Charles III issued a decree exiling the Je-
suits, Olivares, by then an old man, was obliged to
leave the country. On his way through Lima, he en-
countered more misfortune when the viceroy had
his manuscripts confiscated. After reaching Imola
in Italy, he petitioned for their return. The king
himself responded favorably by ordering that the
histories be sent to Spain, but Olivares died before
they arrived in Madrid.
Compared to Rosales, Olivares was more atten-
tive to the details of life around him. Through
careful and precise observation, he describes the
beliefs and customs he encountered firsthand.
Olmedo, José Joaquín (1780–1847) poet
José Joaquín Olmedo was born in Guayaquil, in
the then-Spanish colony of Ecuador, to a Spanish
father and Ecuadorean mother. He studied law and
became a civil servant and politician, holding sev-
eral governmental posts in Spain and the newly
liberated Ecuador. He was instrumental in the
liberation of Ecuador and its establishment as a
separate country, and when Ecuador had gained its
independence from Spain in 1830, he became the
country’s first vice president.
Olmedo is known as a neoclassical poet, and his
poems were highly praised during his lifetime. His
long poem La victoría de Junín (The Victory of
Junín, 1825) celebrates the famous South Ameri-
can liberator Simón Bolívar, a compatriot and
comrade of Olmedo. The following passage illus-
trates its heroic tone:
So in the centuries of courage and glory
where the lone warrior and the poet
were worthy of honor and memory.
Olmedo’s poems were published first in Obras
poéticas (Poetical Works, 1848) and again in Poésias
completas (Complete Poems, 1947). His inspira-
tional outlook remains influential. Unfortunately,
English translations of his works are not in print.
A Work about José Joaquín Olmedo
Harvey, Robert. Liberators: Latin America’s Struggle
for Independence 1810–1830. New York: Overlook
Press, 2000.
Orléans, Charles d’ (1394–1465) poet
Charles d’Orléans was born in the midst of the
Hundred Years’ War. His mother, Valentina Vis-
conti, was the daughter of the duke of Milan, and
his father, Louis d’Orléans, was the brother of King
Charles VI. As a youth he was exposed to the tra-
dition of French lyrical poetry through his father’s
patronage of such artists as Jean FROISSART and
Christine de PISAN. D’Orléans’s first poetic effort
was The Retinue of Love, an imitation of the alle-
gorical style (see ALLEGORY) of the courtly love po-
etry inherited from the southern troubadours and
developed by Jean de Meun.
Captured by the English king at the Battle of Ag-
incourt in 1415, d’Orléans was held hostage at a
series of English castles for 25 years. With only
210 Olivares, Miguel de
books, servants, and visits, as well as messages from
friends in France to amuse him, d’Orléans turned
to writing poetry. Though a great number of his
poems draw on the formulaic images and language
of the courtly love motif, the themes of solitude and
imprisonment add an original and introspective
touch to the poetry he composed during his exile.
By the time of his release in 1440, he had written
another long narrative poem called Dream in the
Form of a Complaint, a collection of carols, more
than 86 songs, and almost 100 ballads. Two manu-
scripts of these works exist, the English version
containing elements not found in the French.
Following failed efforts to negotiate peace be-
tween England and France and to restore proper-
ties taken from him during his imprisonment,
d’Orléans retired to Blois, where he led a court
known for its poetic activity and lively entertain-
ment. He continued composing poetry, largely in
the form of the rondeau, and mentored several
younger poets, among them François VILLON.The
wry humor and cynicism of the aging d’Orléans
mark his later poems. As a whole the body of his
work demonstrates the evolution of French poetry
from the highly stylized patterns of the later Mid-
dle Ages to the observations of direct experience
and inward thought that signaled the HUMANISM
of the RENAISSANCE.
An English Version of Works by
Charles d’Orléans
Fox, John. The Lyric Poetry of Charles d’Orléans. Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
A Work about Charles d’Orléans
McLeod, Enid. Charles of Orleans: Prince and Poet.
New York: Viking Press, 1970.
Ozerov, Vladislav Aleksandrovich
(1769–1816) dramatist
Vladislav Aleksandrovich Ozerov was born and
raised in Russia. He graduated at the top of his
class from a military school and, once in military
service, participated in several campaigns. Ozerov’s
literary tastes were hugely influenced by 17th- and
18th-century French literature, which he read in
great quantities. As a consequence, he wrote his
first poems in French.
Ozerov’s first works were odes and fables,
which, while they showed the extent of his famil-
iarity with the French traditions, were not consid-
ered unduly remarkable. His first TRAGEDY, Death
of Oleg Drevlianskii, staged in St. Petersburg in
1798, did not bring its author any considerable
recognition, either. Great success, however, fol-
lowed his second tragedy, Oedipus in Athens. Oze-
rov did not read Greek, so he borrowed his
Oedipus not from the classical dramatist Sopho-
cles, but from the French playwright Dussie. This
altered the entire tone of tragedy, forgoing all the
antique solemnity. Ozerov’s Oedipus is not a se-
vere, fate-driven king but a weak, sensitive, forgiv-
ing old man.
Ozerov’s most acclaimed tragedy was Fingal.
His interpretation of the plot, borrowed from the
poems of Ossian, concentrated on the contradic-
tion between the vicious, plotting character of
Swaran and the pure, sincere love of Fingal and
Moina. The tragedy was deeply touching and
evoked storms of emotion among audiences.
Ozerov’s fame reached its zenith in 1807, when
his tragedy Dmitrii Donskoi was staged. The work
with its patriotic themes roused the loyalties of its
Russian audiences, who were feeling particularly
nationalistic due to the war with Napoleon. The el-
ements of a touching love story combined with
lofty heroism never failed to produce a thunder-
storm of applause.
Historically speaking, Ozerov is mainly known as
the dramatist who brought the elements of senti-
mentality into Russian tragedy, while strictly follow-
ing the formal canons of pseudo-classical drama.
Ozerov, Vladislav Aleksandrovich 211
212
P
Paine, Thomas (1737–1809) journalist,
essayist, pamphleteer
Thomas Paine, one of the most influential revolu-
tionary writers of the modern era, was born into a
British family of modest means. At the Thetford
Grammar School, the inquisitive young boy stud-
ied mathematics, science, and poetry. Paine was
particularly fond of John MILTON and John Bunyan,
authors known for their radical perspectives on
politics and religion. At age 13, however, Frances
and Joseph Paine, members of the working class,
withdrew their only child from school so that he
could become apprenticed to his father, a corset
maker. Paine went along with the decision but
eventually escaped his obligations by running off
to sea and working as a privateer. Over the years, he
found employment selling tobacco products,
teaching school, and serving as an exciseman (a
governmental employee who imposed taxes on do-
mestic commodities).
At 37 years of age, Paine made a decision that
was to have momentous consequences: He re-
solved to go to America. A letter of introduction
from Benjamin
FRANKLIN, whom he had met ear-
lier, served him well. In 1774, after a difficult voy-
age on the London Packet, Paine arrived in
Philadelphia, the city founded by Quaker William
Penn, and was soon employed by a local printer. A
year later, he was appointed editor of the Pennsyl-
vania Magazine, a publication that flourished
under his direction. The man who had spent years
struggling just to eke out a living finally discov-
ered a professional niche for himself.
Paine did more than edit articles submitted to
the magazine; he also became a journalist and es-
sayist. In Thomas Paine: Firebrand of the Revolution,
Harvey J. Kaye observes that “the paradox of . . .
black bondage in the midst of a prosperous, liberty-
loving, and spiritual people astounded him” and in-
spired him to write “African Slavery in America”
(1775), an article that advocated abolition.
Paine also found himself becoming increasingly
critical of the ways in which Great Britain wielded
its authority over the colonies. He expressed his
outrage in Common Sense (1776), a pamphlet that
Thomas Gustafson, in Representative Words: Poli-
tics, Literature, and the American Language,
1776–1865, argues effected a “transformation in
the terms of the political debate between Britain
and the Colonies.”
In American Crisis (1776), a series of 13 pam-
phlets Paine composed during the American Rev-
olution, he continued to probe issues related to the
quest for liberty. In the first of these leaflets, Paine
writes of how these are “times that try men’s souls,”
and he declares that those who do not “shrink
from the service of this country” deserve the “love
and thanks of man and woman” for having fought
against the tyrannical rule of the British. Legend
has it that selections from this particular booklet
were read to George Washington’s troops in order
to bolster their spirits as they prepared for an at-
tack on the oppressor.
In 1787 Paine returned to England and turned
his attention to writing Rights of Man (1791–92). In
part one, he expressed his support of the French
Revolution and challenged the idea of hereditary
monarchy. In part two, he extended his argument
to include the problem of inequalities based on so-
cial class. Paine held that “something must be wrong
in the system of government” when we see, “in
countries that are called civilized,” the aged being
sent “to the workhouse and [the] youth to the gal-
lows.” “Why is it,” he asked, “that scarcely any are
executed but the poor?” Kaye explains that Paine
wanted the government to “provide income to the
poor and special relief to families with children;
pensions for the elderly; public funding of educa-
tion; financial support for newly married couples
and new mothers; funeral expenses for the working
poor; and job centers to address unemployment.”
Rights of Man met with immediate success:
More than 50,000 copies of it were sold within a
month of its first publication. Conservative forces,
however, were quick to condemn the work, and
they claimed his work was treasonous libel. Paine
never attended his trial. Instead, he fled to France,
where he attained citizenship and celebrity-like
status for having so boldly defended the country’s
cause. Yet when he objected to the execution of
King Louis XVI, who as Kaye points out, had “cor-
responded and conspired with France’s enemies,”
he found himself imprisoned. Fortunately, an
American ambassador granted him American citi-
zenship and promised to assist him in traveling
back to New York.
The last decades of Paine’s life were not easy
ones, and he died, impoverished, in 1809.
Critical Analysis
Common Sense, a pamphlet in which Paine called
for the inhabitants of America to separate from
Britain, is without a doubt Paine’s most significant
work. The pamphlet was extraordinarily popular.
Within a year of its publication, nearly half a million
copies were sold. Kaye remarks that Paine “sought
no material rewards”from his booklet: He “declined
all royalties, insisting that any profits due him be
used to purchase mittens for Washington’s troops.”
In a letter Paine wrote toward the end of his life,
he explained that the “motive and object in” all of
his “political works” was “to rescue man from
tyranny and false systems and false principles of
government, and enable him to be free.” Paine’s ge-
nius lay in the way he recognized the extent to
which language and thinking could be used to ei-
ther enslave or liberate humankind. In “Reflections
on Titles” (1775), for instance, he analyzes the in-
fluence that “high sounding names” have on dif-
ferent types of people. The “reasonable freeman,”
he explains, “sees through the magic of a title, and
examines the man before he approves him.” Paine
claimed, however, that titles “overawe the supersti-
tious vulgar, and forbid them to inquire into the
character of the possessor.” He went on to declare
that “this sacrifice of common sense is the certain
badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom:
for when men yield up the privilege of thinking,
the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.” In the
first chapter of Common Sense, Paine builds on his
earlier critique of titles in order to challenge the
concepts of monarchical rule and the hereditary
succession of power. He argues that while “male
and female are the distinctions of nature, good and
bad the distinctions of heaven,” there exist “no
truly natural or religious reason” behind the “dis-
tinction of men into KINGS AND SUBJECTS.”
“That difference,” as Gustafson observes, has been
“created by words and by words alone or by words
enforced by fraud and brute force.” Denouncing the
British form of government was just the first step
Paine took in his effort to release the linguistic and
mental shackles that bound the colonies to Britain.
Paine, Thomas 213
In the second and most important chapter,
Paine engages in a revolutionary analysis of the spe-
cific terms that had been used to describe the rela-
tionship between Britain and the colonies. Britain
had long been considered the parent country and
the colonies her children. As Gustafson notes, de-
bates centered on “whether it was time for Britain
to fulfill its role by ending its protection and grant-
ing the colonies their independence or whether the
colonies were still obliged to be obedient.” Draw-
ing upon his “common sense,” Paine declares:
Europe, and not England, is the parent country
of America. This new world hath been the asy-
lum for the persecuted lovers of civil and reli-
gious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither
have they fled, not from the tender embraces of
the mother, but from the cruelty of the mon-
ster; and it is so far true of England, that the
same tyranny which drove the first emigrants
from home, pursues their descendents still.
In this passage, according to Gustafson, we can see
how Paine renounced as “misapplications” the
“very words that had defined the relationship be-
tween the colonies and Britain.” The rulers of
Britain had used—or abused—language in order
to perpetuate their control over the colonies.
Paine, on the other hand, demonstrated to the
colonists how they could employ language for
other, more liberating purposes.
The reading public was ready to hear what Paine
had to say. As Kaye remarks, Common Sense “trans-
formed the colonial rebellion into a war for inde-
pendence” by harnessing the Americans’ “shared
(but as yet unstated) thoughts” and communicat-
ing them in language that was “bold and clear.”
Other Works by Thomas Paine
Age of Reason. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing,
2004.
American Crisis. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publish-
ing, 2004.
Common Sense. Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publish-
ing, 2004.
Rights of Man. Introduction by David Taffel. New
York: Barnes and Noble, 2004.
Thomas Paine: Collected Writings. New York: Library
of America, 1995.
Works about Thomas Paine
Gustafson, Thomas. Representative Words: Politics,
Literature, and the American Language, 1776–1865.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Kaye, Harvey J. Thomas Paine: Firebrand of the Revo-
lution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Keane, John. Tom Paine: A Political Life. New York:
Grove/Atlantic, 2003.
McLeese, Don. Thomas Paine. Vero Beach, Fla.:
Rourke Publishing, 2004.
Parini, Giuseppe (1729–1799) poet
Giuseppe Parini was born in Bosisio, a small village
near Milan, Italy. His father later moved the family
to Milan so that Giuseppe could acquire a formal
education. Parini began writing poetry under the
anagram of Ripano Eupilino and published Some
Verses by Ripano Eupilino in 1752, which won him
a place in the selective Academy of the Trans-
formed in Milan.
In 1754 Parini was ordained as a priest and
eventually became a tutor in the Serbelloni family,
a post that pleased him only in that it provided
material for his Dialogue on Nobility (1762), in
which the corpses of a nobleman and a poet con-
verse on the true nature of nobility. The publica-
tion of “Morning” and “Midday” in 1763, his
poetic satire on the aristocracy later collected as
The Day, improved Parini’s circumstances. He be-
came a professor of literature at the Palatine
School, and one of his plays, Ascanio in Alba, was
put to music by Mozart and performed as an opera
in 1771. During the French occupation, Parini re-
luctantly held a government post but was said to
have distributed his stipend among the poor in
protest of Bonaparte’s rule.
Parini also published his Odes (1795) and sev-
eral literary treatises, including a tract on aesthet-
ics, Principles of Literature (1801), but The Day is
214 Parini, Giuseppe
his most accomplished work. In the form of a
mock EPIC similar to Alexander POPE’s The Rape of
the Lock, The Day chronicles the daily routine of an
idle fop as though his activities were heroic deeds.
The poem’s satire skewered the Milanese aristoc-
racy, exposing the elaborate and superficial rituals
of fashionable society by using the dandified na-
ture of its hero.
After Parini’s death,“Evening”and “Night”were
found among his papers, and the first complete
edition of The Day was published in Milan in 1801.
Its elegant verse, playful tone, and sharp insights
into the follies of the idle life provided a model for
later poets who, following Parini’s lead, hoped to
use laughter to arouse shame and curb error.
An English Version of a Work by
Giuseppe Parini
The Day: Morning, Midday, Evening, and Night.
Translated by Herbert Morris Bower. Westport,
Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1978.
Works about Giuseppe Parini
Griffiths, C. E. J., and R. Hastings, eds. The Cultural
Heritage of the Italian Renaissance. New York:
Edwin Mellen Press, 1993.
Tusiani, Joseph.“Giuseppe Parini, Poet of Education.”
Paideia 3, no. 1 (1974): 26–33.
Pascal, Blaise (1623–1662) scientist,
mathematician, theologian
The 17th century was a time of tremendous intel-
lectual activity in many different fields. The scien-
tific revolution was in full swing and many of
Europe’s leading minds were turning their atten-
tion to the mysteries of the physical world. At the
same time, scholars and philosophers were debat-
ing profound questions of religion and ethics.
Among the great thinkers who emerged during
this period was the French genius, Blaise Pascal.
Pascal was born in the town of Clermont. His
mother died when he was only three, and he was
raised almost entirely by his father, Étienne Pascal,
who was a moderately prosperous civil servant.
Etienne devoted himself to the education of his
son, and moved the family to Paris in 1631. Rather
than rely on uncertain tutors, Etienne himself took
the largest responsibility for the teaching of his
son. Under the tutelage of his father, Pascal soon
proved to be a mathematical prodigy. Through his
father, Pascal was introduced to a group known as
the Académie Mersenne, which contained some of
the leading mathematical minds in Paris.
The Pascal family moved to the city of Rouen in
1639. A few years later, Pascal invented a machine
that could do mathematical calculations. This in-
vention was widely admired by many of the intel-
lectual elite of France, although it was never
manufactured on a large scale. Pascal also engaged
in scientific work, conducting experiments in an
attempt to discover the nature of a vacuum. In
1640, when he was still a teenager, he published an
essay titled “Essai sur les coniques,” which dealt
with highly complicated geometrical problems. Al-
though he was still quite young, it had become
clear that he possessed great intellectual abilities.
Also during the years in Rouen, Pascal came
under the influence of the religious sect known as
the Jansenists. The Jansenists followed an uncon-
ventional form of Catholicism but, unlike the
Protestant sects, remained nominally loyal to the
Roman Catholic Church. The effect of Jansenist
teachings turned Pascal’s attention toward religious
matters, although he also remained extremely in-
terested in mathematical and scientific subjects.
Pascal returned to Paris in 1647, intending to
devote himself to serious academic studies. On two
occasions, he met the famous French scientist and
philosopher, Rene DESCARTES. Pascal published a
work entitled Expériences Nouvelles, in which he
describes many of his ideas concerning physics. It
was well received by the scientific thinkers of Paris.
During all this time, Pascal engaged in academic
debates, in which he distinguished himself, with
some of the foremost intellectuals of the day.
The more time he spent in Paris, the more at-
tracted he became to its frivolous and lighthearted
lifestyle. Paris was, at this time, the most cultured
and refined city in the world, with innumerable
Pascal, Blaise 215
pleasurable distractions. Gradually, Pascal began
spending more of his time in idle social amusements
than in doing his work. His fondness for social inter-
action conflicted with his religious beliefs and desire
to make intellectual contributions. On November
23, 1654, he apparently had an intense religious ex-
perience, during which he renounced his social
lifestyle and resolved to devote himself to religion.
After his experience, Pascal moved to the
Jansenist convent of Port-Royal, although he did
not take holy orders to become a monk. From then
on, he lived an austere life, thinking and writing on
religious and mathematical subjects, until his
death eight years later.
In his first literary effort after his 1654 experi-
ence, Pascal became involved in disputes between
the Jansenists and the Jesuit order. A Jansenist pro-
fessor, Antoine Arnauld, has been criticized by the
Jesuits for his views. Pascal wrote out a spirited de-
fense of Arnauld titled Lettres Provinciales. Using
both logical and moral arguments, Pascal refuted
the attacks of the Jesuits, while criticizing them for
their biased attitude toward the Jansenists.
During this time, Pascal engaged in other liter-
ary battles in defense of Jansenism and was prepar-
ing a complete defense of the Christian religion in
general. He also wrote on the subject of miracles,
which was in stark contrast to the developing sci-
entific and rational atmosphere of the age.
In the late 1650s, Pascal began writing the frag-
ments of work that would later be put together to
form his most famous and influential work, the
Pensées, or Thoughts. He was, however, in ex-
tremely poor health, and the intellectual energy
that had once characterized his work was begin-
ning to fade. On August 19, 1662, at age 39, Pascal
died in the home of his sister.
Critical Analysis
The most famous of Pascal’s works is the Pensées,
which were written in patchy form in the last few
years of his life. Technically, it is not a book at all,
but simply a collection of scattered fragments in
which he jotted his thoughts on religious matters.
He had intended to unify these disconnected
pieces into a comprehensive defense of the Christ-
ian religion, but this project was still incomplete
when he died.
Despite its incompleteness and lack of organiza-
tion, the Pensees remains a masterpiece of theologi-
cal thought. Some of Pascal’s arguments, such as the
discussion of prophecies and miracles, had been
used by many theologians before him. But the most
innovative and influential idea presented in the work
was quite original. It is known as “Pascal’s Wager.”
Pascal presents the idea that accepting Chris-
tianity might not appear reasonable to a rational
person, but neither can it appear unreasonable.
Therefore, a rational person should accept Chris-
tianity for the following reason. If a person accepts
Christianity and Christianity is true, the rewards
for the person are infinite, but if a person accepts
Christianity and Christianity is not true, the per-
son loses nothing. On the other hand, if a person
rejects Christianity and Christianity is true, the
person faces the penalties of damnation, while if a
person rejects Christianity and Christianity is not
true, he has gained nothing. For all these reasons,
Pascal argues, a reasonable person should accept
Christianity.
This argument has certain flaws. For example, it
does not take into account the existence of other
religions, simply presenting the choice as being be-
tween Christianity and atheism. Furthermore, the
idea of choosing salvation entirely for reasons of
self-interest has been criticized by many theolo-
gians. Nevertheless, Pascal’s Wager became an im-
portant part of theological thought.
Although his life was comparatively short, Pas-
cal made great contributions to a variety of fields.
The clarity of his style made a significant impact
on the French language. He was an excellent mathe-
matician and significantly advanced the study of
geometry. His scientific work, though overshadowed
by such scientists as Isaac Newton and Galileo
GALILEI, was also quite important. However, it is in
the subjects of theology and religion that the true
importance of Pascal’s work remains. Although
216 Pascal, Blaise