Chapter Voltaire historien, Voltaire auteur de théâtre : son attitude face à la Corée

Overview & Synopsis

Voltaire is one of the few European authors of the 18th century to have dealt with Korea. In this study, we first propose to highlight, through an analysis of all of his work, the texts in which he mentioned Korea and how this country is represented there. We will then try to identify his documentary sources, and we will focus mainly on how the author created stories from historical elements. Our survey also aims to understand Voltaire’s attitude to the historical-philosophical and dramatic genres, and to better understand his conception of these two genres.