La Guerre des Dieux, poème en dix chants
Contributions
- Évariste Désiré de Forges, vicomte de Parny
- author
- Pierre Didot
- publisher
- Pierre-Nicolas-Firmin Didot
- publisher
- Victor Desenne
- publisher
Related resources
- has translation
- Unknown ['La guerra degli dei'] translation
Summary (extracted citations)
"Leaving their terrestrial home, one day, it is said, six virtuous men who died at the same time, arrived at the same moment to present themselves at the gate of Heaven. The angel appears and asks each of them what their religion is; and the oldest approaches, saying: you have before you a good Muslim. The angel: Come in, my friend, and if you turn left you will find the Muslim quarter. The second man: I am Jewish. The angel: Come in, and find a place amongst the Jews. You, who are frowning at this Jewish man, what are you? The third man: Lutheran. The angel: Very well, come in and be surprised by nothing here, go and sit in the temple where your brothers are gathered. The fourth man: Quaker. The angel: Well, come in, and keep your hat on. In that grove the sedentary Quakers gather in a group and there they smoke. The Quaker: Bravo. The fifth man: I am fortunate enough to be a good Catholic, and as such, I am rather surprised to see a Jew and a Turk in paradise. The angel: Come in, and join your people beneath this portico. You are next. What religion have you followed? The sixth: None. The angel: None? The sixth: No. The angel: But then what did you believe in? The sixth: An immortal soul, a God who rewards and punishes, nothing more. The angel: In that case, come in and take your place wherever you like". Taken from 'Tolerance. The Beacon of the Enlightenment', edited and translated by Caroline Warman (Open Book Classics, 2016).
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Notes
This mock epic, anticlerical poem, in the style of Voltaire's 'Pucelle' describes a war between the Christian Trinity and the pagan gods, and makes a plea for religious tolerance. At the time of publication it caused great controversy. It provoked a heartfelt response from Parny's friend and admirer, Chateaubriand with 'Le Génie du Christianisme' (1802). It was censored by the Catholic Church in 1817 and banned by the French government in 1827, long after his death, but continued to appear in many clandestine editions.
Parny drew on the Enlightenment use of the study of comparative religion as a means of sceptically undermining Christianity's claims to authority and uniqueness. His mock epic is also a libertine work in which the gods have many sexual adventures, thus juxtaposing Christian morality with pagan sensuality.
A letter from the Interior Ministry to Parny, lauding his patriotism and success in opposing superstition, granted him 1200 livres towards the publication of 'La Guerre des Dieux' (6 Nivose, An VII = 26 Dec 1798). See AN (Pierrefitte), F/17/1021 (A), dossier 7, f.108.
De Parny's poems were very popular in France and further afield, drawing admiration from Chateaubriand and Alexander Pushkin ("Parny, he's my master") amongst others.
See 'Évariste de Parny, La Guerre des Dieux (1799)', critical edition by Jacques-Charles Lemaire (Honoré Champion, 2002) and 'Selected Poetry and Prose of Evariste Parny, in English Translation with French text', ed. Francoise Lionnet with translations by Peter Low and Blake Smith (MLA, 2018).