ABSTRACT
Denis Diderot's Correspondance is a varied and stylistically complex collection of letters which are much more than a mere testimony of his personal and professional life. Many different epistolary personae are evident in Diderot's Correspondance. One of the facets of his personality which is privileged here but not always in evidence in Diderot studies is that of the loving father. This chapter considers fatherhood and gender roles in terms of Diderot's Correspondance, and reveals how this relates to or differs from his more ostensibly philosophical writing. Diderot's negative attitude towards early motherhood is consistent throughout his works, although it must be noted here that he appears to have conveniently forgotten his earlier plans to marry his daughter to Vialet. Whilst Diderot was a man capable of close emotional and intellectual friendships with women, his conception of the sex as a whole was based upon biological determinism and the generally held assumptions of his day.
