Fiction and the philosophy of happiness : ethical inquiries in the Age of Enlightenment / Brian Michael Norton.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The moral in Phutatorius's breeches: stoicism, subjectivism, and the possibilities of happiness in Tristram Shandy -- "Vous croyez que le même bonheur est fait pour tous": ethics and singularity in Le neveu de Rameau -- Tragic eudaimonism: social contradictions and the problem of happiness in Rousseau"s Julie -- The politics of happiness: Caleb Williams, political justice, and the nature of human goods -- Rethinking autonomy: Emma Courtney, feminist ethics, and the question of independence -- Conclusion: the art of life in the Age of Enlightenment.

"Explores the novel's participation in eighteenth-century 'inquiries after happiness, ' an ancient ethical project that acquired new urgency with the rise of subjective models of well-being in early modern and Enlightenment Europe. Combining archival research on treatises on happiness with illuminating readings of Samuel Johnson, Laurence Sterne, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Godwin and Mary Hays, Brian Michael Norton's innovative study asks us to see the novel itself as a key instrument of Enlightenment ethics. His central argument is that the novel form provided a uniquely valuable tool for thinking about the nature and challenges of modern happiness: whereas treatises sought to theorize the conditions that made happiness possible in general, eighteenth-century fiction excelled at interrogating the problem on the level of the particular, in the details of a single individual's psychology and unique circumstances."--Publisher description.

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