Instructor demo of a critical reading – to be applied to Candide & free speech casebook:
What is a critical reading?
What it is not: passive, absorbing & accepting ideas like a sponge
What it is:
active, questioning, resist / break down / build up  construction of your own
thoughts (your interpretation based on the text, connect reading + writing –
“joining a continuing conversation”
Why bother to read actively & critically?
Because most moral dilemmas or complex problems involve multiple
points of view & close examination of principles / values / assumptions …
To rush to conclusion or to reduce complexity to quick, easy answers is a
form of misrepresentation, leading to yelling matches or much more serious
consequences.
Strategies for active reading:
1 Preview the whole: context or frame of reference – historical perspective.
2 Argument or main idea: paraphrase as a complete sentence (subject / predicate logic).
3 Points of view: identify POVs inside & outside the text (include reader’s).
4 Examples or evidence: what points support the main idea (data, cases of).
5 Quotes from text: what exactly is the author saying? (quote marks, cite source)
6 Recognize principles or values: what does the author hold as true or ethical?
7 Recognize underlying assumptions: what does the author take for granted? unstated beliefs?
8 Expose contradictions or inconsistencies: any fallacies or lapses in reasoning?
9 Questions: any Qs provoked by the text? follow-on Qs? omissions or oversights?
10 Register your response: agree? outraged? lulled into reassurance / comfort?
curious to read other sources on the same subject? remind you of something in
current events? remind you of something else you’ve read? link your
reader response to the what & how of the author’s work (anchor your writing in
what you’re reading)
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Voltaire & Candide:
Why yet another new translation of Candide? Peter Constantine, 2005.
Dante’s Divine Comedy, Goethe’s Faust, the Bible – eternal Qs & controversies.
Modern adaptations: Candide the opera by Leonard Bernstein (lyrics by Richard Wilbur),
Candy by Terry Southern, Candy the movie (Christian Marquand, 1968).
Both Candide and Candy were originally banned books.
Voltaire is often referred to as the “father of the French Revolution” and the 18th c.
Enlightenment is sometimes called “the century of Voltaire.”
The preceding Age of Reason and the Enlightenment acknowledged our human powers of
reasoning – and sought to reexamine traditional beliefs rather than accept them as given – the
church, state, class society, criminal justice system, capital punishment & torture … Qs of God,
man, nature, society, art, science, knowledge, politics, love & war.
Late in life, after being thrown into prison (Bastille) and banished not once but twice out of the
country (for his writing that offended the king and the established order), Voltaire wrote Candide
as a picaresque tale of an innocent wandering through a corrupt world.
In his old age, Voltaire was increasingly more socially concerned and outspoken—living well on
his country estate … taking care of his many friends and employees … even starting a fine watch
factory to pass on new job skills to country folk living on his land.
Candide: picaresque, satire / irony, “serious joke medicine” for the times, employing humor to
examine serious Qs of injustice and corruption.
In Voltaire’s time
v.
In our time_____________
Lisbon earthquake 1755
Katrina 2005, Indian Ocean tsunami 04
ancien regime
1st, 2nd, 3rd estates
clergy, nobility, common people
what / who = the present establishment?
wars betw Brit, Fr, Am in New World
religious factions, sectarian conflict
Afghanistan & Iraq wars
control of oil, water
Isaac Newton
science v religion
England: Industrial Revolution,
colonization of India
globalization…Third World
struggles?
1776 American Revolution
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson
key figures of power?
1789-1799 French Revolution
key events?
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Ch 1, pp 3-6: We meet Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss
Inflated language to belittle baron & Pangloss. Pride, pretension of nobility & the academic.
(a) “…in the castle of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronckh…” “ The baron was one of the most
powerful lords of Westphalia, for his castle had windows and a door.” (1)
(b) “…only seventy-one heraldic quarterings of noble lineage…” (1)
(c) “Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmo-idiotology.” (4)
Hypocrisy: false virtue or “the great pretender” – conscious lying, playing a part, split ID
“The vicar of the village served as his private almoner.” “Everyone called the baron ‘Your Grace’ and
laughed at his stories.” (1) *The priest did not work for him because the baron was a good and holy man
… people did not laugh at his stories b/c he was funny …
False logic applied to Candide, baron, Pangloss. Irony: saying one thing, meaning another.
(a) “His judgment was fairly straightforward and his mind of the simplest.” (1)
(b) “…for as everything has been made for a purpose, everything is necessarily made for the best
purpose.” (4) [noses made for spectacles, legs for breeches, stones for castles, pigs for pork] fallacy of
cause and effect
Euphemisms – making fun of polite conversation, appearances over reality. Also, contrast between
what happens inside / outside the castle. Class, gender roles. Age, beauty.
(a) “Pangloss in the underbrush giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother’s
chambermaid…” “…reason, the effects and their causes…” (5)
(b) “…Cunegonde and Candide encountered each other behind a screen. Cunegonde dropped her
handkerchief, Candide picked it up…” (5) [court language of the fan, glove, handkerchief]
(c) “…flashed…trembled…strayed…” baron kicks Candide out of the castle, baroness slaps Cunegonde
“All was consternation in this finest and most charming of all possible castles.” (5-6)
Opening chapter:
Introduces main characters—Candide, Cunegonde, Pangloss
Setting—grand castle in a part of Germany once controlled by France
Class—baron & baroness of nobility, Pangloss a hired tutor, Candide of questionable birth
Repetition as an indicator of key idea—“…all is best…” (4) “the best of all possible worlds”
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Setting the stage for contrasts and conflict:
youth
v.
age
innocence
wisdom
high-born
low-born
beauty
deformity
wealth
poverty
male
female
powerful
weak
legitimacy
illegitimacy
inheritance
loss, reversal of fortune
On our radar screen:
social injustice
intolerance
fundamentalism
hypocrisy
fallacy
satire and irony
few v. many
then v. now
optimism, skepticism, pessimism
reason
doubt
science v. religion
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