Caio Morello Labate

This research investigates the apparent contradiction of 'sensibility' in Diderot's Le Rêve de D'Alembert and Paradoxe sur le comédien. While the former postulates sensibility as a fundamental principle, the latter requires its absence for artistic genius. Through a close reading of the Paradoxe, supported by the Rêve, this study argues that the actor's lack of sensibility is not a contradiction, but rather an affirmation of the concept as a centralizing faculty, hierarchically superior to other bodily 'appetites'. We contend that the Paradox presents the actor as the figure of the genius: a body whose excellence lies in performing the despotism of consciousness over a plurality of physiological forces, which are typified as local sensibilities. An appendix to this dissertation will offer a new translation of the Paradoxe with a critical apparatus, based on recently available critical editions.