In this thesis, I examine the satire Rameau’s Nephew (Le Neveu de Rameau, 1821) by the French Enlightenment philosopher and writer Denis Diderot. In the first part of the thesis, I have gathered information on Diderot’s materialist doctrine and his interpretation of nature. The author argues that philosophy is only possible if natural phenomena are interconnected or chained together. I was interested in what kind of art would emerge as a reflection of inseparable, interconnected phenomena. I sought the answer in Diderot’s programmatic text The Paradox of the Actor. The method that the author recommends to theatre practitioners is based on mimicry: actors are supposed to wear a mask of emotion, behind which they conceal their impassive face. Mimicry is only possible if there are clear boundaries between organisms, a notion which materialism, with its doctrine of fluidity, opposes. I was interested in whether the acting method recommended by Diderot undermines materialist monism, since imitation is based on the distinction between the actor and their role. It turned out that Diderot distinguishes between the street actor and the stage actor: the latter is not concerned with realistic portrayal, but with idealised behaviour and the creation of characters with definable traits. The recognisable, typified characters portrayed by the theatre are not to be found in nature, which, according to Diderot, is in a state of constant flux. Yet class-based society demands them in order to function harmoniously. Consequently, Rameau’s nephew’s professional acting is also theatrical: it conforms to caricatured notions of stereotyped figures belonging to the lowest social class. Yet the fluidity and vitality of nature cannot be suppressed – they find expression in the nephew’s ecstatic pantomime performances, during which he loses his sense of reason and his body takes on a wide variety of roles.
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