Forms and mechanisms of empathy in two contemporary dramatic variations based on Diderot’s “Jacques the Fatalist and his master”

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2023..10-27

Keywords:

Denis Diderot, Milan Kundera, Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, empathy, intertextuality

Abstract

This article examines two dramatic variations on Denis Diderot’s novel Jacques the Fatalist and his Master from the point of view of the forms of the writer’s empathy. After an overview of contemporary research on the types and definitions of the concept of empathy and a synthesis of Suzanne Keen’s theory of narrative empathy, the plays of Milan Kundera and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt are studied under the prism of the forms, mechanisms and textual representations of empathy. The concepts of variator, metatextual empathy and intertextual empathy are formulated to define the postures of Kundera and Schmitt in homage to their writing model.

Author Biography

  • Antoaneta Robova, Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

    Antoaneta Robova is a Chief Assistant Professor in French Literature and French Language at the Department of Romance Studies, Faculty of Classical and Modern Philology, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She defended a PhD thesis in joint supervision (cotutelle internationale) in 2012. She is the author of the book (in Bulgarian) “Artistic Characters and Cycle of Arts in Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s Prose Writings” (2022) and has published numerous articles on contemporary authors (Milan Kundera, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Romain Gary, Annie Ernaux, etc.). She conducts research on 20th and 21st century French Literature, Comparative Literature, Literary Stylistics and Myth Criticism.

References

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Published

2025-11-06

Issue

Vol. 9 (2023)

Section

I.Forms and Modes of Empathy: Heroes and Anti-Heroes in a Comparative Perspective

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How to Cite

Forms and mechanisms of empathy in two contemporary dramatic variations based on Diderot’s “Jacques the Fatalist and his master”. (2025). Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum, 9, 10-27. https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2023..10-27