Citation

Bernardini PL, Lucci D. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 2016; 2016-January(9): 135-155.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

This article examines Giacomo Casanova's writings on suicide against the background of the European and Italian disputes on voluntary death in the Age of Enlightenment. While in Discorso sul suicidio [Discourse on suicide] (1769) Casanova attacked those who judged self-killing legit-imate, in Nove dialoghi (written in manuscript in 1782, but left unpublished by the author) he was torn between accepting the possibility of suicide and rejecting it as impermissible. Thus, Casanova's views on self- killing represent an intriguing and provocative attempt to discuss this subject from a multifaceted perspective and, in some respects, are emblematic of the controversial nature of the eighteenth-century European debate on this issue.

Language: en