At a time when painters, sculptors and musicians found their inspiration in pagan Antiquity as much as in the Bible, Fénelon, in The Adventures of Telemachus, painted enchanting pictures of what was known as fable, the gods of mythology and Homeric heroes. Far from contradicting the devout Christianity and pure love spirituality of the Archbishop of Cambrai, Antiquity was, as it had been for Poussin and as it was for Couperin, a means of expressing the inevitable questions with which religions and theologies stumbled: desire, guilt and death, paternity and filiation, the fragility of cultures and the cruelty of history. Because these were his questions, generations of readers, regardless of fashions and tastes, have been seduced by this fable, written for the grandson of Louis XIV, at once ancient and modern, one of the few to have been created since Antiquity with such lasting success.
The Adventures of Telemachus
[Les aventures de Télémaque]
Type:
Public:
Year of publication:
2022
Pages:
466
Moral assessment:
Type: Literature
Nothing inappropriate.
Some morally inappropriate content.
Contains significant sections contrary to faith or morals.
Contains some lurid passages, or presents a general ideological framework that could confuse those without much Christian formation.
Contains several lurid passages, or presents an ideological framework that is contrary or foreign to Christian values.
Explicitly contradicts Catholic faith or morals, or is directed against the Church and its institutions.
Literary quality:
Recommendable:
Transmits values:
Sexual content:
Violent content:
Vulgar or obscene language:
Ideas that contradict Church teaching:
The rating of the different categories comes from the opinion of Delibris' collaborators
Author: François Beauclair, France
Update on: Sep 2024