Diderot and the Plot of History

Abstract

Aristotle was the first to raise the metaphysical question of freedom and determinism in the context of literary theory. In its definition of plot, the Poetics maintains that while the events of history follow merely one after the other {meta tade), the events of poetry must follow one because of the other (dia tade) (1452a21).1 Fiction supplies the causal connection lacking in the realm of fact. This particular tenet was not destined to be the most authoritative element of Aristotle's system, for his own disciples immediately defied him by writing historical tragedies and tragic histories.2 Moreover, since antiq uity, historical thinkers have not hesitated to discern a causal connection in history and have even based their professional competence on that discernment. In short, history has aspired to the dignity of poetry by appropriating the concept of plot. Yet, the counter-Aristotelian concept of the plot of history need not vitiate the fundamental distinction between arbitrary and necessary sequence, or between chronological and logical order. When history simulates the coherence of fiction, fiction can cultivate the disorder of history in a corrective or compensa tory relationship consistent with Aristot?e's thesis. In the early modern period, when historians cultivated a predominantly aesthetic approach emphasizing the intelligible pattern of the past, fiction achieved remark able experiments in arbitrary action and gratuitous plot. From this juxtaposition, we may infer that the arbitrary plot developed as a corrective mimesis of history or a repudiation of historiography. Yet to draw this inference would be to rehabilitate the plot of history in the history of plot. If history has no pattern, can we discern a pattern among fictional works which subvert the very notions of sequence and order? Does literary history contend against the historical process? This hypothesis can be tested through a more careful definition of arbitrary or gratuitous action. Human action is often felt to be arbitrary when it responds neither to ethical norms nor to self-interest, as in the case of such French literary protagonists as Panurge, Mme. de la Pommeraye, Lafcadio, and Meursault. These figures may exemplify an enduring fascination with pure volition as a metaphysical, theological, or even political issue, but it is difficult to integrate their conduct in a