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Dramatic Structure And Philosophy In Brutus, Alzire And Mahomet, Thomas M. Carr Jr.

French Language and Literature Papers

An impressive amount of recent critical work has dealt with the philosophic element in Voltaire's tragedies. His plays have been labelled a theatre of involvement and a theatre of ideas; they have been examined from the standpoint of propaganda and as tragedy. However,the focus of such studies has been primarily on Voltaire's message or on the meaning of the plays, rather than on the dramatic structure he created to convey his philosophic concerns.

Today, of course, Voltaire does not rank high either as an original thinker or as a dramatist. Nonetheless, his attempt to introduce his philosophic concerns into his …