Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters in this book. The book discusses the Cambridge School kind of intellectual political history, and its ambition is to lay bare the dilemmas of happiness and rights. It describes general presentation of the three author-politicians whose works are analyzed in this book: Louis-Sebastien Mercier, Choderlos de Laclos, and Marie-Joseph Chenier. The book explains how and why these authors believed that literature could have political effects. It analyzes Mercier's L'an 2440, reve s'il en fut jamais, Laclos's Les Liaisons dangereuses, and Chenier's Fenelon ou les religieuses de Cambrai. The book talks about the revolutionary theater and Chenier's Fenelon. The push away from the literary elite and the pull toward the open political culture are the two premises that explain the political ambition and involvement of the period's literature as it is here represented by Mercier, Laclos, and Chénier.