SOURCE: "The King and Court Jester: A Reading of C. F. Meyer's Das Leiden eines Knaben," in Seminar, Vol. XV, No. 1, February, 1979, pp. 27-38.

In the following essay, Jacobson considers the significance of the relationship between the characters of King Louis XIV and Fagon in Meyer's novella.

The frame of Das Leiden eines Knaben is dominated by Louis XIV and Fagon—antagonists whose very special relationship and interaction give this Novelle both its form and its meaning. The frame is a kind of dramatic dialogue and subsumes the interior tale as both an extended argument within the dialogue and as a part of the subject matter of the dialogue. The specific subject of the dispute between Louis XIV and Fagon is whether Père Tellier, the priest who has just been chosen father-confessor to the King, is the villain Fagon alleges him to be. Louis doubts Fagon's claim...