Reading Text and Image in the Eighteenth-Century: Diderot and the Tableau

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 6

The power of the image is a central preoccupation in eighteenth-century philosophy. Not only is the relationship between word and image (and the respective limitations of the verbal and visual) a key topic in the aesthetic thought of the period, but the impact of images on human sensibility (as understood at the time) was also foregrounded in a range of epistemological, moral and medical debates.

This course will focus on the writings of Denis Diderot, who explored the complexities of the relationship between word and image in a range of innovative ways. We will explore Diderot’s experimental theories of the tableau in conjunction with his attempts to put these into practice in various types of fictional, educational and artistic context (eg the theatre, the novel and art criticism).

You will acquire in-depth understanding of the aesthetic thought of a single writer and, at the same time, learn about the generic conventions of a range of different types of writing, as well as the way in which Diderot’s notion of the tableau suggests important innovations in each of these genres.