The indiscreet gems

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Bust of Denis Diderot by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle , (1777)
Title page of Diderot's "Les Bijoux indiscrets", Amsterdam 1772 edition

The indiscreet gems (French original title Les Bijoux indiscrets ; German translations also under the titles Die schwätzigen Mussels (1776), Die Verräter (1793) and Die schwätzigen Kleinode (1906)) was the first novel by Denis Diderot , which was published anonymously by Laurent in 1748 Durand appeared.

The author of the novel Les bijoux indiscrets in 1766 Denis Diderot (1713–1784)

General

According to the daughter Marie-Angélique Diderot (1753-1824), the work was written within two weeks on the occasion of a bet in which her father had claimed that the erotic novels of the time were practically dozen of items that he too was able to manufacture . The fee went to his lover, Madeleine de Puisieux .

As a narrative, Les Bijoux indiscrets are reminiscent of the frame narrative with box stories from the Arabian Nights collection . The orientalist Antoine Galland was probably the first to translate this story into French between 1704 and 1708. As a result, it became fashionable in France to invent a variety of such oriental tales.

There is a parallel to the work Le Sopha ( 1742 ) by Claude-Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (German: Der Sopha , Berlin 1765; Das Sofa , Berlin 1968). There a sofa, whose soul is an earlier incarnation of a sultan's narrator who believes in transmigration of souls, tells of the frivolity and morality of eroticism based on his plush love efforts. But whenever it gets most exciting, to the annoyance of the Sultan, the narrator talks about poetry theory.

content

The main and framework plot takes place in a fictional sultanate of the Congo around the Sultan Mangogul and his favorite Mirzoza. Both of them, now in an intimate relationship for four years, are looking for a change. They believe they can achieve this in the voyeuristic reporting of the gallant undertakings of their contemporaries in the Sultanate. Cucufa, the brilliant inventor or magician, is brought in. Mangogul now receives a wonderful ring from him, with which he can make the " bijoux ", the "gems" or the "pieces of jewelry", that is, the genitals of women speak or tell when the ring is pointed at them. The speaking “gems” ( vaginae loquentes ) then tell the truth about the hypocrisy at court. The ring can make any gem tell the most intimate experiences, secrets and thoughts of its wearer, completely against their will. This enables the Sultan to find out not only about any kind of sexual debauchery of all his subjects , but also about corruption, venality, hypocrisy and mendacity of his entire environment. This made the novel an allegory of the rule of Louis XV. and his mistress Madame de Pompadour . The city of Banza stood for Paris, and with the Congo France was easily recognizable, Mangogul's grandfather corresponded to Louis XIV and was called Kanoglu.

At the beginning of the work, the spatial, temporal and family circumstances of the ruler Mangogul are explained: his birth, upbringing and early years of rule as a young sultan. Based on the information, the fictionality becomes clear. The geographical local allocation of the sultanate was settled in the fictional state of Congo, the ruler's seat is called Monomotapa not far from the city of Banza.

Sultan Mangogul tries out love at court with 30 women, one after the other, with sometimes more, sometimes less surprising results, which, however, usually lead to an erotic story. The series ends with the Sultan, contrary to his promise, directing the ring at Mirzoza. She proves to be virtuous and forgives him at the price that he returns the ring to Cucufa.

The novel uses the structural pattern of the then much-read collection Thousand and One Nights , which Antoine Galland published in a very successful French version from 1704 to 1708 . But Fabliaus Le Chevalier qui fit les cons parler , a medieval French tale in verse, makes use of this subject . In terms of content, it is based on the genre of the “Roman licencieux”, the “revealing” novel of the era, as it was produced with great success by Crébillon fils , for example .

Diderot proves to be a brilliant narrator in the bijoux and also deals with topics that preoccupied him as an "enlightener".

Background and reception

In The Indiscreet Gem, Diderot used the motif of the vagina loquens , which appears probably for the first time in literature in the medieval Fabliau Le Chevalier qui fist parler les cons from the 13th century. The central point is that the “lower lips” of the woman express the truths that the upper lips do not dare to say.

The motif was later taken up several times up to the modern age. The director Claude Mulot used the story of Diderot and realized it for his film Le Sexe qui parle . The motif was later used in the 1977 film Chatterbox by Tom DeSimone , which is a softcore comedy based on Mulot's original. The modern play The Vagina Monologues is also based on the motif of the speaking vulva or vagina.

expenditure

French

  • Les Bijoux indiscrets . Au Monomotapa, sans nom d'éditeur ni date. 2 vol. Paris 1748
  • Les Bijoux indiscrets. With colored illustrations by G. de Sonneville. Paris around 1920. (Bibliothèque Précieuse.)

German . First translation in 1776 by Johann Baptist von Knoll, b. 1748 in Ravensburg, the basis of many other German transmissions

  • The traitors. [Translation by Carl Friedrich Cramer .] [Vieweg, Braunschweig 1793.]
  • The chatty gems. (The Traitors) Newly edited after an 18th century translation. by Lothar Schmidt. With 7 illustrations by Franz von Bayros . Müller, Munich 1906
  • The chatty gems. Edit according to old translation. and ed. by Manfred Naumann. Nine color plates by Klaus Ensikat . With a preliminary remark by Lessing . Eulenspiegel, Berlin 1976 a. ö. (4 editions, most recently 1986). Without ISBN
  • The indiscreet gems. Adapted from the oldest German translation, probably written during the poet's lifetime. u. ed. by Jochen Wilkat. Heyne, Munich 1968 DNB 456451315 . Series: Exquisit books, 13
  • The chatty gems. Translated by Hans Jacob. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1983. Without ISBN
  • The indiscreet gems . In The Narrative Complete Works , 2 or All Novels and Stories, 1 (= WBG). Unk. Output. Transl., Ed. And notes by Hans Hinterhäuser. Ullstein, Berlin 1987 ISBN 3-548-37145-0 or Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft WBG, Darmstadt 1985 without ISBN. First Propylaea, Berlin 1966 with 25 pen drawings by Charles Lapicque
  • The traitors. Translated from FLW Meyer (see above 1793). Insel, Frankfurt & Leipzig 1992 DNB 920706827 ISBN 3-458-33079-8

literature

  • Odile Richard: Les Bijoux indiscrets: variation secrète sur un thème libertin. Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie (1998) Volume 24 Issue 24, pp. 27–37, (online)
  • Birgit Althans: The gossip, the women and the speaking at work. Campus textbook, Frankfurt 2000, ISBN 3-593-36633-9 , p. 272.
  • Michel Foucault: Histoire De La Sexualite I. La Volonte De Savoir. Gallimard 1976.
  • Madeleine Dobie: Foreign Bodies: Gender, Language and Culture in French Orientalism. Stanford University Press , Stanford 2001, ISBN 0-8047-5100-5
  • Jean Firges : "Les Bijoux indiscrets." Offensive. Roman , in dsb .: Denis Diderot: The philosophical and literary genius of the French Enlightenment. Biography and work interpretations. Sonnenberg, Annweiler 2013, ISBN 9783933264756 , pp. 22–28 (in German)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jürgen von Stackelberg: Diderot. Artemis-Verlag, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-7608-1303-8 , pp. 24-32.
  2. ↑ a b c Amdrew Aberdein: Strange Bedfellows: The Interpenetration of Philosophy and Pornography. In: Dave Monroe (ed.): Porn - Philosophy for Everyone. Wiley, 2010. pp. 1-2. (PDF; 353 kB)
  3. ↑ Jennifer Vanderheyden: The Function of the Dream and the Body in Diderot's Works. Peter Lang Publishing, 2004, ISBN 0-8204-5842-2 .
  4. ↑ Le Sexe qui parle in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ↑ Emma LE Rees: The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2013; P. 108.
  6. ↑ WBG; attached The nun