OEDIPUS AND ANTI-OEDIPUS IN THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF VOLTAIRE

Abstract

In this study we intend to present Œdipe, Voltaire’s tragedy written in 1718. Before the analysis of the play itself we would like ,however, to explain a sociological phenomenon which seems essential to us: why did such an interest for the œdipal subject exist in France at the beginning of the Enlightenment and why did the Sophoclean tragedy exercise such an influence over the literary climate of the first decades of the 18thcentury? In our opinion the theme of œdipal revolt, that of a son violently opposing the father’s law, is at the very base of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, a philosophy of radical subversion whose main objective was to destroy and decompose the feudal system and the absolute monarchy. But our analysis of Voltaire’s Œdipe will show a very curious paradox. For Voltaire, a dangerous author who is said to have launched the first missiles against the old regime, proves at the same time to be conservative enough to defend that system. According to Julia Kristeva and other partisans of psychoanalysis, the ultimate resolution of the œdipal complex consists in bringing the revolted son back to the traditional values of the land and in reconciling him with the father’s law, previously deconstructed. This is exacty how Voltaire’s own œdipal complex met its resolution. From revolt to conservatism, such is the road that he traveled in his play