Fénelon: Telemachus

Fénelon's Telemachus ranks with Bossuet's Politics as the most important work of political theory of the French grand siecle, influencing Montesquieu and Rousseau in its attempt to combine monarchism with republican virtues. Telling the tale of Ulysses' son Telemachus' education by his tutor Mentor (the goddess Minerva in disguise), it shows him learning the qualities of patience, courage, modesty and simplicity, needed when he succeeds as King of Ithaca. It is a commentary on the bellicosity and luxuriousness of Louis XIV.