Amelia: A Historical Tragedy of Love, Power, and Loyalty in Medieval Brittany

By Voltaire

Book Overview

Voltaire's Amelia is a historical tragedy of love, loyalty, political power, and fatal conflict in medieval Brittany. Founded on events surrounding a duke of Brittany in 1387, the play brings Voltaire's dramatic intelligence to a world of noble ambition, courtly danger, private feeling, and public consequence. As personal devotion collides with authority and violence, the drama reveals how rulers, families, and lovers can be trapped by honor, fear, and political necessity.

Published in the dramatic works section of the 1901 English-language Works of Voltaire, in William F. Fleming's translation, Amelia belongs to the side of Voltaire too often overshadowed by Candide and his philosophical writings: Voltaire the dramatist. The same Enlightenment mind that attacked fanaticism, cruelty, and tyranny in prose also worked through tragedy, using historical settings to test conscience, justice, loyalty, and the abuses of power.

For readers interested in French drama, Enlightenment literature, historical tragedy, medieval Brittany, and Voltaire beyond his best-known satires, Amelia offers a compact but serious example of his theatrical work. It is a useful title for collections of classic drama, French literature, historical plays, and the broader literary world of eighteenth-century Europe.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1617202592
• ISBN13: 9781617202599
• Release Date: March 2014
• Publisher: Wilder Publications
• Length: 42 Pages
• Weight: 0.17 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"