On the Trail of Diderot
Asst. Prof. Dr. Ufuk Sahin

Abstract
Written as a result of his real life experiences as a member of the Diderot Project, and also his readings of French philosopher, novelist and playwright Denis Diderot, Malcolm Bradbury’s last novel To the Hermitage naturally bears traces of this prominent figure of the Age of Enlightenment. From the first pages, the novel proves that it conveys Diderot’s influences including choices of words and phrases, sentence structures, narrative techniques, among others, and also characters and themes discussed in the novel. These stylistic as well as intertextual elements appear sometimes as direct quotations, and sometimes Bradbury adopts allusions and parodies, or some metafictional elements such as interventions, digressions, and comments and explanations. Thus, this article aims to track down those features Bradbury borrows from Diderot in To the Hermitage and contains some selected extracts from the chapters of the novel.

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