Candide
by
Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire
F
rangois Marie Arouet was born in Paris,
France, in 1694, the youngest child of a
cultured middle-class family. Educated by
the Jesuits at the College Louis-Le-Grand, Arouet
abandoned the study of law for a literary career.
His first work (Imitation de I'ode du R.P. Lejay sur
Sainte Germaine) was published in 1710. Arouet
soon discovered his gift for satire, which would
land him in trouble over and over again. In 1717
Arouet was imprisoned in the Bastille for 11
months on the suspicion of having written "J'ai
vu" (I have seen), a poem defaming the regent.
The true author was eventually revealed, prompting Arouet's release; he left prison with a manuscript for what would be a successful play,
Oedipus (1718), and a new name, Voltaire, by
which he was thereafter known. Over the years,
Voltaire experienced literary successes and failures, financial prosperity, another stint of imprisonment in the Bastille, and a period of
voluntary exile in England, where he met such
literary figures as Jonathan Swift and Alexander
Pope. Returning to France in 1728, Voltaire agai
became the center of controversy when his Lettres Philosophiques (1734) were condemned and
burned by the parliament of Paris. Fleeing Paris,
Voltaire set up residence with his mistress,
Madam de Chatelet, first in her home at Cirey,
France, later in Belgium. A correspondence with
King Frederick the Great of Prussia led to a place
at the Prussian court; the friendship ultimately
soured, however, and Voltaire left in 1753. After
a period of wandering, Voltaire settled with his
niece and mistress, Madame Denis, in Switzerland
L I T E R A T U R E
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THE L I T E R A R Y WORK
A satiric novel, set in various Old and New
World countries during the mid-eighteenth
century; published in French (as Candide, ou
I'Optimisme) in 1759, in English in 1759.
SYNOPSIS
An innocent young man travels the world in
search of love and fortune, losing his illusions
sas he encounters vice in all its forms.
in 1755 (Madame de Chatelet had died in 1749)
While living in Switzerland, he was shaken by the
news of the earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, in
which thousands were killed. The disaster profoundly affected Voltaire's philosophical and religious views and became an important plot point
in his masterpiece, Candide (1759). Set during the
eighteenth century, Candide nonetheless possesses a timeless appeal. Not only does the novel
explore the breakdown of established systems; using scathing satire and wit, it also exposes the
flaws of optimism—the belief that all happens for
the best in this best of all possible worlds.
Events in History at the Time of the
Novel
Leibnizian optimism. Although Voltaire satirizes religion, politics, the military, and human
vice and folly, his primary target in Candide is
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the philosophy of optimism, especially as formulated by the German intellectual, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) and later
circulated—in somewhat distorted form—by
Leibniz's disciple, Christian Wolff (1679-1754).
An accomplished scientist and mathematician,
Leibniz was a physicist, a co-discoverer—along
with Sir Isaac Newton—of differential calculus,
and a student of the great philosophers of the past.
There was a popular philosophy in Leibniz's
day called "mechanism," which held that all natural phenomena could be explained by concrete
causes and mechanical principles in the material
world. Attempting to reconcile a mechanistic interpretation of the universe with belief in a just
and benevolent God, Leibniz developed a system
of metaphysics—the branch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature of reality. In his
Essais de Theodicee (1710), Leibniz responded to
the age-old question "What is the nature of divine
Providence and how can one reconcile it with the
presence of evil in the world?" By way of response,
Leibniz proposed the Principle of Sufficient Reason (there must be some logical reason why anything is as it is), along with two main assumptions:
1) God is good; 2) of all the possible worlds God
could have created, he must have chosen the best
when he created this one. Since God is perfection,
anything he created apart from himself must be
imperfect, including the world; yet in his good22
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ness, God would still have created the best of all
possible worlds. This positive view explains the
name attached to Leibniz's system of thought—
optimism. Optimism acknowledges the existence
here of evil in the world, recognizing the inevitability of evil occurrences but maintaining that
these occurrences have moral value in the greater
scheme of things. As a corollary to his system,
Leibniz posited that matter was made up of monads, spiritual units rising in gradations from the
lowest to highest, with God being the highest
monad of all. His belief was that these monads
functioned according to a divine, pre-established
harmony with the material universe.
Although Voltaire apparently respected Leibniz's breadth of intellect, he rejected out of hand
the German thinker's metaphysical system, as he
had many others. In a 1737 letter to Frederick
the Great of Prussia, Voltaire declared, "All metaphysics contains two things: first, all that which
men of good sense know; second, that which they
will never know" (Voltaire in Foster, p. 75). News
of natural disasters, such as the Lisbon earthquake
in 1755, further increased Voltaire's doubts about
whether optimism was a valid philosophy of life.
Candide exposes the ineffectiveness of such thinking, as its hero faces a string of random disastrous
events, which no amount of philosophizing ameliorates. During a shipwreck, Candide wishes to
save his drowning benefactor Jacques the Anabaptist but "Pangloss the philosopher prevented
him, arguing that the Lisbon harbour had been
created expressly so that the Anabaptist would be
drowned in it. While he was proving this a priori, the ship foundered and everyone perished"
(Voltaire, Candide, p. 11).
The Lisbon earthquake. Among the historical
occurrences that inspired Voltaire's writing of
Candide, the earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal, on
November 1, 1755, was arguably the most important. The earthquake, which modern seismologists estimate as being 8.6 in magnitude,
struck between nine and ten in the morning on
All Saints' Day, while most of Lisbon's population was in church. Three shocks were apparently felt; the second was especially severe,
toppling buildings and contributing to many of
the 40,000 or so deaths, half of which occurred
in Lisbon alone.
In the wake of the initial disaster, severe aftershocks further rattled the population, then fires
and tidal waves ravaged the city. Fire raged
through Lisbon for three days after the earthquake, while the huge waves crashed over the
quays, causing widespread damage and drown<^-
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This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how
the laws of movement operate in such fearful
disasters in the best of all possible worlds—where
a hundred thousand ants, our neighbours [the
Portuguese], are crushed in a second on our
ant-heaps, half dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath debris from which it
was impossible to extricate them. . . . What a
game of chance human life is! What will the
preachers say—especially if the Palace of the Inquisition is left standing! [The reference here is
to the tribunal to suppress deviation from the
teachings of the Roman Catholic Church; in effect in Portugal from 1536-1820, the Inquistion
exiled and even burned offenders at the stake.]
I flatter myself that those reverend fathers, the
Inquisitors, will have been crushed just like
other people. That ought to teach men not to
persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious
humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth
opens and swallows up all alike.
(Voltaire, Letters, p. 155)
Candide
PARTIAL EVIL, UNIVERSAL G O O D
ing thousands of people. Three-quarters of Lisbon was leveled, with lasting repercussions for
the survivors. A bitter conflict sprang up between
the Marques de Pombal, the chief minister of Portugal, and religious orders, specifically the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits), over the
cause of the earthquake. Pombal chose to regard
the earthquake as a natural disaster and advocated
a practical solution to the devastation—namely,
burying the dead and feeding the living. The Jesuits, however, preached that the earthquake was
God's punishment on the Lisboners for their sins.
Displeased, Pombal worked to undermine the Jesuits' preachings about the earthquake and encouraged the rapid rebuilding of the city. Later,
he successfully attempted to remove the Jesuits'
influence over the government, spearheading
their eventual expulsion from Portugal in 1759,
the same year Candide was published.
T
hy philosophy of optimism was not preached only by Leib­
niz. He had a disciple, Christian Wolff, who preached it as
well, albeit in a form that deviated from Leibniz's o w n .
Voltaire's mistress, Madame du Chatelet, warmed to the phi­
losophy too. Above all, though, the philosophy was touted by
Leibniz and by the English poet Alexander Pope, who expressed
remarkably similar views in his Essay on Man [1733-34):
All nature is but art. unknown to thee:
*\ll chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All ;>,irti,tl evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear. Whatever is. is right.
(Pope, pp. 2270-71)
Voltaire, who met Pope when visiting England, admired the
Englishman's work. Yet Candide refuses to subscribe to the no­
tion that "Whatever is, is right," and to this extent can be
viewed as a refutation of Pope's views.
The Lisbon earthquake horrified people across
Europe. Many thinkers and philosophers devaluated their positions in the wake of the catastrophe. Voltaire, living in Geneva, Switzerland, at
the time, was especially effected; his faith in God
was shaken and he found himself questioning the
optimistic belief that everything happens for the
best. A few weeks after the earthquake, Voltaire
wrote to M. Tronchin of Lyons:
Soon after the earthquake, Voltaire wrote his
"Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne" (Poem on the
disaster of Lisbon), which was published in 1756
and expressed the changes in his philosophy
about the nature of good and evil in the world.
Translator Roger Pearson notes that "the poem
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begins by asking, first, how such carnage can be
in accordance with the eternal laws of a good and
free God, and, second, how it can be a punishment from God" (Pearson in Voltaire, Candide,
p. xix). Unable to find ready answers to his questions, Voltaire concludes his poem in skepticism,
slightly leavened with hope.
In Candide, the Lisbon earthquake is revisited.
The novel's hero and his companion, Dr. Pangloss, find themselves in the city as disaster
strikes: "Whirlwinds of flame and ash covered
the streets and public squares: houses disintegrated, roofs were upended upon foundations,
and foundations crumbled. Thirty thousand inhabitants of both sexes and all ages were crushed
beneath the ruins" (Candide, p. 12). Candide is
injured by falling debris while the ineffectual
Pangloss speculates endlessly about the cause of
the earthquake. Afterwards, both men are caught
up in the Inquisitors' need to punish somebody
for the quake, reflecting the real-life dispute between Pombal and the Jesuits.
The Jesuit influence. Organized religion in general takes a beating in Candide, but the Jesuits,
whose influence extended across continents, bear
the brunt of Voltaire's attacks. Founded by Saint
Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, the Society of Jesus—
a Roman Catholic male religious order—was
formed to promote the salvation of all men and
women and to foster the spiritual growth of the
Jesuits themselves. The order grew rapidly,
spreading throughout Catholic Europe in the
form of schools and colleges during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Jesuit missionaries
also introduced Catholicism to other parts of the
world, including Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
During their years of dominance, Jesuits made
substantial scholarly contributions to philosophy, language studies, and theology; they also
served as royal confessors and papal legates.
The Jesuits' involvement in various governments antagonized Protestants as well as political leaders who wished to increase the state's
power over the church. Moreover, during the
seventeenth century, Jesuit moral theology was
frequently attacked by its enemies as lax, unethical, self-serving, and manipulative. The Jesuits
became associated with the qualities of craftiness
and duplicity; they were accused of allowing the
end to justify the means, even though their moral
theology strictly forbade this teaching.
By the time of Voltaire, the Jesuits had established colleges attended by the nobility and middle class of Catholic Europe. Voltaire himself was
a pupil of the Jesuits; he studied classical lan-
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guages and literature, philosophy, and theology
at the College Louis-Le-Grand, although later in
life he would become an implacable foe of the
Jesuits. Jesuit missionaries achieved considerable
success among native peoples in the Philippines
and Latin America, too. However, by the mideighteenth century, the Jesuit influence had begun to wane in Europe. Intellectuals and
philosophers found Jesuit teachings contrary to
their own. As members of the Englightenment
era, the intellectuals stressed the power of reason and knowledge gained by empirical experience of the world, while the Jesuits stressed the
power of faith and held that God was the source
of all knowledge. Kings and ministers likewise
found the Jesuits' presence in government a hindrance to the state's increasing control over the
church. During the 1750s and 1760s, the rulers
of Portugal, Spain, France, and Naples worked
successively to suppress the Jesuits on both a national and colonial scale, finally pressuring Pope
Clement XIV into stamping out the order worldwide in 1773. Only in Prussia and Russia did the
Jesuits continue to work, since neither Frederick
the Great nor Catherine the Great had agreed to
promulgate the suppression.
In Candide, Voltaire casts a jaundiced eye over
the Jesuits' accomplishments at home and
abroad, depicting them as ultimately self-serving,
greedy, and exploitative. In Latin America, Candide's servant, Cacambo, a former servant at the
Jesuit College of the Assumption, remarks to his
new master: "It's a wonderful way of governing
[the Jesuits] have. Their kingdom is already more
than three hundred leagues wide, and it's been
divided into thirty provinces. Los Padres own
everything in it, and the people nothing—a masterpiece of reason and justice" (Candide, p. 32).
The Seven Years' War. Voltaire's writing of Candide coincided with a bloody international struggle for dominance in the world. Known as the
Seven Years' War (1756-63), this conflict was
fought in Europe, North America, and India. On
one side were France, Austria, Russia, the Germanic state of Saxony, Sweden, and (after 1762)
Spain; on the other side, Great Britain and the
Germanic states of Prussia and Hanover.
The Seven Years' War stemmed mainly from
two conflicts: 1) the colonial rivalry between
France and England and 2) the struggle for supremacy in Germany between the house of Austria and the rising kingdom of Prussia. In 1755,
after hostilities broke out in North America (the
French and Indian War), King George II of England, elector of Hanover, negotiated the Treaty
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of Westminster with King Frederick II of Prussia, guaranteeing the neutrality of Hanover. In response, France and Austria formed an alliance in
1756 in which they were later joined by Sweden
and Russia. The main European phase of the war
began in 1757, after Frederick II invaded Saxony
and Bohemia.
Early in the war, Prussia's Frederick II enjoyed
several victories, although the Austrians defeated
him at Kolin and he was forced to withdraw from
Bohemia. Meanwhile, Britain and France faced
off in several locations, the latter losing many of
its overseas possessions, including Louisburg in
America and Quebec in Canada. In 1757 the
French enjoyed a rare victory at sea over the
British by taking Port Mahon in Minorca, Spain,
an event that had shocking repercussions in
Britain. Admiral John Byng, who had commanded a fleet sent to support the British forces
in Minorca, retired to Gibraltar after an indecisive engagement with the French. On his return
to England, Byng was arrested and tried by courtmartial for cowardice; hostile public opinion and
bitterly divisive politics contributed to a verdict
of "guilty" and a sentence of execution. Byng was
executed by firing squad on the quarter-deck of
his own ship, HMS Monarch.
After protracted negotiations between the
war-weary participants, peace was re-established
by two treaties in 1763. The Treaty of Hubertusberg settled hostilities between Prussia, Austria, and Saxony by restoring the pre-war status
quo, except in the case of Prussia. It gained status, emerging as a dominant European power.
Similarly, the Treaty of Paris—between Britain,
France, and Spain—elevated Britain to the status
of world's chief colonial empire.
The Seven Years' War provided Voltaire, a
Frenchman and a former guest at the Prussian
court, with plenty of fodder for a satire. In Candide, Voltaire depicts the senselessness of war in
general, through the bloody and essentially pointless struggle between the king of the Bulgars and
the king of the Abars, whose armies are responsible for equal amounts of carnage. Voltaire also satirized the Byng incident, in which he had been
more personally involved, having met the admiral while in England. Distressed to hear of Byng's
court-martial, Voltaire interceded with a letter
written by his friend the Due de Richelieu; the letter praised Byng's conduct and character and
Voltaire had it sent to the admiral himself in hopes
of gaining clemency for him. But the effort failed
and Byng was executed. All Voltaire could do was
immortalize the incident, as he did in Candide with
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the scathing remark, "[I]n this country it is considered a good thing to kill an admiral from time
to time to encourage the others" (Candide, p. 68).
Candide
ARAW0iAt
In self-defense, Byrtg^Kplafrt&l/&thisj&M m&sw$ f<w Ms ^
• Niylor at Minorca. ^Ey&ry 'pergori thef&concluded the place
lost, and all mlMimfjrfcticafete* * * * B^it why (it rfiay be asked)
was not Minorca £t this time relieved? 1Hn$wer, because I wa
not sent \i\ time enoogh to pfevtnt:'the/enemy'i landing, and
that when1 was sentr I 'W^-/tt^;stmifi|';ert^y|h :t0 -t^at .the e*v
' 'eti^s fteet.'; •. •,* Maki j-be^/tl^Fe^^l^^tiM Pefiigf,-^ayld' -have
fen left for the shattered fleet, what securoty for Gibralter lat
tlie time a IBfltJ^h cotorty in soutii^ri §p^ipfl (Byrtg Jit tuiist^il/
pp, 233"34} Further confirmation of his good characte
be foiincl In the letter £bbyt Hini |bn| V^ltoirf r^eiwd from
the Due *de ftichelieau: ^Whatever I have ^gn or Wgard of him
does him honour. He ought not to be a^acl^ fat this manner
when he has teen defeated after doing all that could be expected of him;', * * All Admiral Byng's manoeuvres were excellent, the two fleets being equal, * * but [c&irs, the French]
better equipped* * * . H^d the English persisted in fte engage*
ment ttiey would have lost fheir entire fla^:^ (Richeffeii in<;Tynstall^ p» 251)* Before being executed/ Byng handed py^f:-A note
to the marshal declaring his Innocence, Iclptilyiiiig Himself as
a scapegoat for the military loss* At t2;0i);p;|4^;8yti]g^,,wa$"shot
to death on the quarterdeck of the Man&ftyite* In frorft q| hts remains, which were buried in the family vault/Is att%scrif^i0n:
To the Perpetual Disgrace
Of Publfck Justice,
The Honourable John Byng^ Esq.,
Admiral of the Blue/
fell a Martyr to Political Persecution,
May 14 in the Year MDCCLVll [1757]
When Bravery and Loyalty
Were Insufficient Securities
For the Life and Honour
Of a Naval Officer
[Byng family in TurtstaJI, p» 286}
The Novel in focus
The plot. The novel, which purports to be translated from the writings—in German—of the late
Dr. Ralph, begins by relating the youth of Candide, an innocent young man rumored to be
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the illegitimate nephew of Baron Thunder-tentronckh of Westphalia, a province in Germany.
Reared in the Baron's household, Candide grows
up with the Baron's own children and studies with
the family tutor, Dr. Pangloss, a disciple of Leibniz, who teaches him the satirically named discipline of metaphysico-theological-cosmocodology.
Pangloss asserts, and Candide believes, that all
things happen for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
This dictum is put to the test when Candide
falls in love with the baron's daughter, Cunegonde. Observing the young people kissing behind a screen, the baron expels Candide from his
estate. Penniless and hungry, Candide is conscripted into the king of the Bulgars' army and
forced to become a soldier, after which he suffers severe birchings (floggings) for failed maneuvers and perceived disobedience. After a
horrendous battle between the king of Bulgaria
and the king of Abares, Candide deserts and
spends some time as a beggar. He is eventually
taken in by Jacques, a kindly Anabaptist (Protestant radical advocating baptism and church
membership for adult believers only). The next
day, Candide again meets Dr. Pangloss, now a
beggar himself and suffering from the pox. Pangloss informs Candide of the sack of Baron
Thunder-ten-tronckh's castle during the war and
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the brutal deaths of the entire family, including
Cunegonde, at the hands of Bulgar soldiers.
Jacques takes Pangloss into his household as well
and sees to his being cured of his disease.
Traveling to Lisbon on business, Jacques,
Candide, and Pangloss are shipwrecked just off
the coast of Portugal. Jacques drowns, but Candide and Pangloss are among the wreck's few survivors. The two reach Lisbon just as a great
earthquake devastates the city, killing 30,000
people. The Inquisition in Portugal decides to
punish sinners whose wickedness may have
brought about the earthquake by holding an
auto-da-fe (public execution for their penalties).
Candide and Pangloss are among those accused;
the former is flogged, the latter hanged, while
other victims are burned to death at the stake.
An old woman tends to Candide's injuries, and
conveys him to a country house, where he is reunited with Cunegonde who, contrary to Pangloss's report, survived the Bulgar attack. Presently
she is the kept woman of two men (an Inquisitor
and a Jew), although she has denied both her sexual favors. Cunegonde is overjoyed to see Candide. Her two men arrive, interrupting the
reunion, and Candide kills them both. Candide,
Cunegonde, and the old woman flee to Cadiz,
Spain, but find themselves robbed of the gold and
jewels Cunegonde had brought with her. The trio
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sail for Paraguay in Latin America, where Candide
hopes to join the Spanish army, now engaged in
fighting the Jesuits. During the voyage, the old
woman tells her story, revealing that she was Pope
Urban X's daughter and the Princess of Palestrina
(in Italy), but had suffered many misfortunes—
being captured by pirates, sold into slavery, and
raped and mutilated by various captors before becoming Cunegonde's servant.
The trio arrive in Buenos Aires, where the governor falls in love with Cunegonde. Scheming to
win her for himself, he arranges to have Candide
accused of several crimes, including robbery and
murder. Candide, accompanied by his faithful
servant Cacambo, is obliged to flee, leaving Cunegonde and the old woman behind. Candide and
Cacambo reach Paraguay and decide to fight for
the Jesuits, recognizing this as the more practical
and profitable alternative. At a border post, they
meet the Jesuit commander, who turns out to be
Cunegonde's brother. The new baron had also
miraculously survived the attack on the palace,
thanks to the ministrations of the Jesuits, who educated him for their order. At first pleased to see
each other, Candide and the baron quarrel after
the latter learns Candide wishes to marry Cunegonde; they come to blows and Candide, fearing
he has killed the baron, again flees with Cacambo.
Master and servant have several adventures together. Captured by the Oreillons, a savage tribe
of cannibalistic natives, they are released once
they prove they are not Jesuits. Candide and Cacambo then find their way to Eldorado, a legendary land where gold and jewels have no
monetary value, faith in the deity does not require organized religion, and the inhabitants all
live in peace and harmony. Love for Cunegonde
and the desire for worldly success eventually impel Candide to leave Eldorado; at Candide's request, the king of Eldorado gives him 100 sheep,
which the young man loads with gold and jewels. On the arduous journey back to the world,
Candide and Cacambo experience more misfortunes, eventually losing all but two of their sheep
and the wealth they carried. Reaching Surinam,
Candide is so distraught by the sight of a black
slave, maimed by labor in a sugar mill and a failed
escape attempt, that he vows to renounce Pangloss's philosophy of optimism.
While trying to book passage to Buenos Aires,
Candide is further devastated by the news that
Cunegonde has become the governor's mistress.
He dispatches Cacambo to Buenos Aires with
jewels to bribe the governor into giving up Cunegonde. Candide plans to wait for his servant's reL I T E R A T U R E
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turn in Venice and arranges passage there for
himself and his two sheep. An unscrupulous
Dutch captain steals the sheep and sails away
with them, leaving Candide stranded. Unable to
gain redress from the law, an embittered Candide sails for Bordeaux, France; during the voyage he acquires a new companion, Martin the
scholar, chosen on the basis of his own misfortunes and disgust with life.
Together, Candide and Martin embark upon
a new sequence of adventures. Candide's optimism is somewhat restored by the recovery of
one of his Eldorado sheep, rescued when the
Dutch captain's ship is sunk during a fierce sea
battle. On arriving in France, Candide samples
Parisian high society, including the theater and
gambling houses. France likewise proves full of
rogues, and they trick Candide out of more of
his wealth. Resuming his travels with Martin,
Candide sails on a Dutch ship to Portsmouth,
England, where he witnesses the execution of an
English admiral by his own countrymen. Horrified by the sight, Candide refuses to go ashore
and negotiates with the ship's master to convey
him to Venice at the earliest opportunity.
In Venice, Candide finds no sign of Cacambo
or Cunegonde, although he sees still more examples of human vice and folly. He does meet
Paquette, Cunegonde's maid from Westphalia,
who is now the mistress of a monk named
Brother Giroflee; both are unhappy with their situation and Candide gives them some money in
hopes of improving their lot. Finally, Candide
again encounters Cacambo. On the way to
Venice, he and Cunegonde were captured and
enslaved by Turks. Cunegonde, who by now has
lost her looks, is working as the Prince of Transylvania's dishwasher in Constantinople. Candide buys Cacambo's freedom and, with his
companions, boards a Venetian galley to Constantinople. Among the galley slaves, the astonished Candide finds Pangloss and Baron
Thunder-ten-trockh; the former had escaped
death in Lisbon because of an incompetent hangman, the latter had survived the wound Candide
had inflicted. Candide buys the freedom of Pangloss and the baron as well, and, after the ship
docks, the entire company hurries to ransom
Cunegonde and the old woman from the Turks.
Reunited with his sweetheart, Candide loyally
resolves to marry her, although she has lost her
beauty and he no longer desires her. The baron
continues to oppose the marriage on the grounds
of social inequality, whereupon Candide has him
taken back to the galleys. After his marriage,
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Candide and his companions, later joined by
Paquette and Brother Giroflee, settle down, but
not happily, on a small farm; boredom makes
everybody quarrelsome and discontented. Seeking solutions to their problems, Candide, Pangloss, and Martin call upon a neighbor, a dervish
reputed to be a great philosopher, but he refuses
to discuss the nature of good and evil with them
and slams the door in their faces. On their way
back to the farm, the trio meets a contented Turkish orange-grower who recommends work as a
panacea for "three great evils: boredom, vice, and
need" (Candide, p. 92). Taking this lesson to
heart, Candide and his companions decide to develop their particular talents for the good of their
little household. The farm begins to thrive, as
each member does his or her best to be useful,
and Candide decides that the best thing one can
do is to cultivate one's own garden.
The limits of philosophy. Much has been written about the nature of Candide's quest and the
timeless examples of human vice and folly he encounters. The physical terrain Candide travels
parallels his mental journey; the idealistic hero
learns more with each country he visits, experiencing countless hardships before formulating a
philosophy that allows him to make peace with
an imperfect world.
Candide (from the Latin Candidas, meaning
"white") begins as a sheltered innocent, absorbing even the most absurd teachings of Dr. Pangloss without question:
Pangloss taught metaphysico-theological-cosmocodology. He could prove wonderfully that
there is no effect without cause that, in this best
of all possible worlds, His Lordship the Baron's
castle was the most beautiful of castles and
Madam the best of all possible baronesses. . . .
Candide would listen attentively, and innocently he would believe.
(Candide, p. 2)
Candide's innocence dissipates quickly enough,
however. As shown, the young man's expulsion
from the castle after his love for Cunegonde is
discovered, initiates a hazardous, global adventure during which Candide experiences or witnesses various atrocities and disasters, including
murder, rape, religious persecution, storms,
shipwrecks, earthquakes, disease, and slavery.
There is no fair or logical reason underlying any
of these occurrences, yet Pangloss, who accompanies Candide on the early phases of his journey, continues to parrot the same metaphysical
declarations about "the best of all possible
worlds." Although Pangloss himself suffers nu28
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merous cruelties, including a brush with death
at the hands of the Inquisition, he refuses to recant or reevaluate his optimistic stance even at
the novel's end:
I still feel now as I did at the outset . . . I am a
philosopher after all. It wouldn't do for me to go
back on what I said before, what with Leibniz
not being able to be wrong, and pre-established
harmony being the finest thing in the world.
(Candide, p. 87)
But if Pangloss's adherence to optimism, in
the face of injustice and misery, becomes increasingly absurd, the pessimistic, even nihilistic, philosophy of Martin, another of Candide's
companions, proves just as limited in outlook. A
self-professed Manichean—one who believes,
like the Persian sage Mani, that the universe is
governed by two equal forces of Good and Evil—
Martin initially seems to have a surer grasp on
the way the world works than Candide or Pangloss. When Candide wistfully asks if men have
always been "feeble, fickle, envious, gluttonous,
drunken, avaricious, ambitious, bloodthirsty,
slanderous, debauched, fanatical, hypocritical,
and stupid," Martin inquires why Candide
should suppose men to have changed their character, when animals, such as hawks, have not
changed theirs (Candide, p. 47). As the pair travel
through Europe, Martin's cynicism about the human race continues to prove justified. However,
Martin is proved wrong in one very significant
instance, after he predicts that Candide's servant
Cacambo, entrusted with wealth and the task of
bringing Cunegonde to Venice, will abscond with
Candide's jewels and mistress himself. Cacambo
instead remains true to his master, his return to
Candide's side delayed not because of greed and
self-interest but because of his capture and enslavement by pirates.
Ultimately, as Voltaire sees it, neither Leibnizian optimism nor Manichean pessimism adequately explains how humankind and the
universe work. In fact, metaphysical philosophy
in general fails to provide Candide and his companions with answers once they settle down in
a state of peevish discontent after their wanderings. A learned philosopher in the neighborhood
refuses to discourse with them about the nature
of Good and Evil; instead, a kindly orangegrower directs the squabbling travelers towards
the practical plan of developing their individual
talents for the benefit of their community and
impresses them with the necessity of cultivating
their garden. Even gloomy Martin acquiesces in
this plan, remarking, "Let's get down to work and
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stop all this philosophizing. . . . It's the only way
to make life bearable" (Candide, p. 92).
While thwarted love and other misfortune initially spur Candide on his journey, he ultimately
continues to travel as much to educate himself
in the ways of the world. The emphasis on education in Candide reflects the philosophical, scientific, and political changes sweeping through
Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. These changes were all part of the
larger intellectual movement often referred to as
the Enlightenment. Rather than accepting established tenets of thought without question, scholars and thinkers began to reevaluate politics and,
especially, religion in the light of individual freedoms as well as knowledge gained through experience. Such works as Isaac Newton's Principle*
(1687) posited the idea of the natural world as
an orderly place governed by universal mathematical principles. By the time of Candidas composition, European intellectual society had
become associated with such qualities as good
sense, a belief in reason and moderation, and empirical knowledge. It is to common sense and
empiricism that Voltaire seems to appeal in Candide, even as he rejects the more exotic metaphysical systems and abstruse reasonings that
were another end product of the Enlightenment.
Pearson writes, "It is education, then, the process
of enlightenment, which gives shape to experience, and not only for Candide" but for his companions, and by extension, the novel's readers as
well (Candide, p. xxii).
Sources and literary context. Voltaire's disillusionment with Leibnizian optimism was the primary impetus behind Candide. One character,
Dr. Pangloss, exemplifies all the shortcomings of
that philosophy as he attempts to explain away
all injustice, misery, and wretchedness in the
world as part of some grand metaphysical plan.
Other characters meanwhile seem based on recognizable types in romantic or picaresque literature: an innocent, questing hero; a high-born
beloved; arrogant enemies; and faithful companions. Voltaire was probably inspired by the writings of his British contemporaries Jonathan Swift
(see Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal,
also in Literature and Its Times) and by Alexander Pope, whom he met while living abroad in
England. Parallels to Samuel Johnson's Rasselas,
also published in 1759, may be detected too.
Other possible influences are the writings of Rabelais, Boccaccio, and Cervantes (see Don
Quixote and The Little Gypsy Girl also in Literature and Its Times).
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Candide satirizes elements of various types of
writing, including romances, travel narratives,
and picaresque novels. As for the work itself,
Candide probably fits best in the genre of conte
philosophique, or philosophical tales, since it
blends a brief fictional narrative with searing
commentary on the nature of philosophy. The
philosophical tale, says translator Roger Pearson,
was a perfect vehicle for such a skeptical author,
who relied on experience rather than theory.
"Deeply suspicious of metaphysics and 'systems',
[Voltaire] was constantly appealing to the facts:
fiction, paradoxically, allowed him to show the
ways in which the muddle and miseries of life
could not be reduced to neat, abstract theories"
(Pearson in Voltaire, Candide, pp. viii-ix).
Candide
Publication and reception. The publication of
Candide is a fascinating story in itself. On the
15th and 16th of January 1759, unbound copies
were quietly sent from Geneva to various cities:
Paris received 1,000 copies, while Amsterdam,
London, and Brussels also received sizable
shipments. The manuscripts were bound at their
respective destinations and published on a previously agreed-upon date. The intent was to circulate as many copies as possible throughout
Europe, before either pirated, corrupted editions
could appear or the authorities could suppress
Voltaire's subversive work. The plan succeeded.
Although the Vatican placed Candide on its index of forbidden books on May 24, 1762, the
tale had been in wide circulation for over three
years by then. Owing to the inflammatory nature
of the ideas in Candide, Voltaire himself maintained a discreet silence about the work during
its composition. He did not even mention it in
correspondence until after its publication and,
for a time, denied authorship. His silence
may have helped him evade unpleasant legal
consequences—the authorities in Paris and
Geneva attempted to suppress the distribution
of Candide but took no action against Voltaire
himself.
Contemporary opinions were sharply divided
on Candide. Conservatives roundly condemned it;
Genevan pastors termed it "full of dangerous principles concerning religion and tending to moral
deprivation" (Mason, p. 14). Other detractors
complained that, despite its wit and insight, Candide's vision was ultimately too despairing.
France's Madame de Stael observed that Candide
appears to be written "by a being of a different
order from ourselves, insensible to our condition,
well pleased with our sufferings, and laughing like
a demon or an ape at the miseries of that human
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species with which he has nothing in common"
(de Stael in Foster, p. 91). One of the harshest
criticisms of both work and author may have
come from the English Romantic poet William
Wordsworth, who termed Candide "this dull
product of a scoffer's pen, / Impure conceits discharging from a heart / Hardened by impious
pride!" (Wordsworth in Foster, p. 92).
The reading public disagreed. In France and
other countries, people devoured the book,
which went through over 17 editions in its first
year of publication. The due de la Valliere informed Voltaire, "Never perhaps has a book sold
so briskly" (de la Valliere in Mason, p. 14).
Voltaire's friend, Nicholas Claude Thierot, was
similarly enthusiastic, writing to the author, "Oh
most cherished Candide, most excellent author
and inventor of quips and jests! Your book is
snatched from hand to hand. It so delights the
heart that those who usually laugh with tight lips
are forced to laugh with open mouths" (Thierot
in Foster, p. 89). England's critic James Boswell
declared that Candidas attempt to "refute the system of Optimism" was "accomplished with brilliant success" (Boswell in Foster, p. 91). The
success of Candide continued well into the nineteenth century; William Hazlitt, the British critic,
wrote, "Candide is a masterpiece of wit. . . . It is
in the most perfect keeping, and without any
appearance of effort. Every sentence tells, and the
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whole reads like one sentence" (Hazlitt in Foster, pp. 92-93).
—Pamela S. Loy
For More Information
Ayer, A. J. Voltaire. New York: Random House,
1986.
Foster, Milton P., ed. Voltaire's Candide and the Critics. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1962.
Knapp, Bettina L. Voltaire Revisited. New York:
Twayne, 2000.
Manceron, Claude. Twilight of the Old Order. Trans.
Patricia Wolf. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.
Mason, Haydn. Candide: Optimism Demolished. New
York: Twayne, 1992.
Pearson, Roger. The Fables of Reason: A Study of
Voltaire's Contes Philosophiques. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
Pope, Alexander. "Essay on Man." In The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. Ed. M. H.
Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986.
Roche, Daniel. France in the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Tunstall, Brian. Admiral Byng and the Loss of Minorca.
London: Philip Allan, 1928.
Voltaire. Candide and Other Stories. Trans. Roger
Pearson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
. Voltaire in His Letters. Trans. S. G. Tallentyre. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1919.
Walsh, Thomas, ed. Readings on Candide. San Diego:
Greenhaven, 2001.
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