Schwab, Richard N. “The Diderot
Problem, the Starred Articles and the Question of Attribution in the Encyclopédie (Part I).” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), 1969, pp. 240–85. JSTOR, JSTOR, doi:10.2307/2737689.
In a very in-depth study, Schwab addresses the authorship of articles, particularly the unsigned ones, focusing on assigning Diderot to those previously anonymous. Schwab discusses the problems associated with his study, particularly the inconsistencies in the Encyclopedists’ labelling system (Diderot typically signed with an asterisk, but the asterisk held other uses as well), stating the difficulty to determine exactly which articles Diderot wrote. Schwab explains he began by finding articles that were definitely not by Diderot, claiming that many were previously missed due to scholars ignoring specific rules set by the editors, but Schwab’s main goal is to find asterisked articles and front matter that had not yet been placed into Diderot’s authorship. The majority of the article is devoted to a long list of starred (asterisked) articles that occur in Volume I of the Encyclopédie, along with various notes regarding irregularities and special circumstances.
Basic Information
Country of Publication: United States
Language: English
Decade: 1960s
Main Classification: Authorship
Related Sources
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Notes
None
Updates
7/14/2020: Created page.