Abstract

Illness and writing are inextricably linked in Voltaire's works, particularly in his correspondence. The relationship between Voltaire's illness and his erotic desire has been the least explored of these links and is the most intriguing. Voltaire uses illness as a trope for his illicit passion for his niece, and physical suffering replaces physical desire as a means of writing about the body. Voltaire's obsession with his illness is closely connected with eighteenth-century notions of sympathy, which used the ability to sympathize with the pains and pleasures of others as a gauge of moral sentiments.

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