de Voltaire
LIFE, WORKS, PHILOSOPHY, CONTEXT, AND
MORE
The Age of Reason/Enlightenment
 What do we know about the Enlightenment?
 Also called the Age of Reason
 It was popular in 18th century Europe and sought to encourage
the use of reason and the advancement of knowledge.
 Promoted Science (which was not cool with the Church,
oftentimes)
 Disliked abuses of the Church, fighting between Protestants
and Catholics, etc.
 Came after the Renaissance, but before Romanticism.
 Think “Swift”
The Life of Voltaire
 Voltaire was born November 21, 1694 as Francois
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Marie Arouet.
He was born in Paris to a middle class family.
His father was very stern, and his mother died when
he was ten. (He hated the idea of “self” and did not
write about his family or anything considered
“introspective”.)
He was educated at Jesuit College (Louis-le-Grand)
(he was sent there at the age of 10).
After college, he defied his father’s wishes and
turned to writing.
The Life of Voltaire
 Voltaire became known as a great satirist and writer.
 After writing two “libelous” poems about a French
aristocrat, he was sent to prison (the Bastille) for
eleven months.
 During this time, he wrote a play based on the Greek
tragedy of Oedipus. It was called Oedipe, and was
critically acclaimed.
 After being released he had a second run-in, and
decided to exile to England.
The Life of Voltaire
 Voltaire loved England and the English. He even
wrote one of his books cataloging the freedoms the
English enjoyed (ironic when you think about how
much Swift hated England, also an exile).
 This book was banned and burned in France.
 Voltaire, upon his return to France, lived with his
mistress for the next 15 years. Upon her death, he
became part of the Prussian Court, but despised the
people there.
The Life of Voltaire
 His life, at this point full of disappointments, caused
him to reject his optimistic philosophy and the
philosophy of Leibniz (see later slide).
 Also adding to his rejection of optimism were the
concepts of war and natural disaster (namely, the
earthquake at Lisbon and the Seven Years War).
 Voltaire, overall, was well-renowned.
 He was named honorary historiographer of France,
was elected to the French academy, and his books
(banned or not), flew off of shelves.
Voltaire
 Voltaire hated human cruelty, religious intolerance,
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war, and many other aspects of society.
He holds a place in French literature equivalent to
that of Shakespeare’s in English literature.
Voltaire wrote poetry, histories, satires, plays (75 of
them), and philosophical tales (Candide).
He also wrote criticisms of literature and wrote for
The Encyclopedie, a work that came to epitomize the
Enlightenment.
Voltaire often rejected his work, writing under the
pseudonym “Dr. Ralph”.
Philosophy and Deism
 Voltaire became extremely interested in the works of
Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz.
 Isaac Newton, of course, thought that Universe could
be explained by physics and mathematics (he is the
guy who established gravitational law).
 Newton believed that ‘a deity’ constructed a
completely rational and orderly world (like a clock),
but did not interfere with it.
 Voltaire liked this idea and thought humans could
find happiness in this type of Universe.
Philosophy Continued (Leibniz)
 Leibniz (1646-1716) was a/the:
 German mathematician
 Co-inventor of calculus
 Philosopher and theologian
 Developer of the philosophical theory of “optimism”
 Applied mathematical formulas to theological issues
 Leibniz espoused “Optimism”
 If (1) God is moral, and (2) God is all powerful, then
(3) Everything that happens in the world must be the
best thing that could possibly happen.
 In other words, God would not create a universe
other than the best of all possible universes.
THUS
 We are part of a system and cannot see the whole
picture.
 What we see as bad is actually good and necessary.
 We are a part of nature, not the singular end of
creation.
 It is only our pride that causes us to see our
immediate suffering as a bad thing.
 Whatever IS is right.
Loss of Optimism
 Because of Voltaire’s loss of his mistress, his falling-
out with the Prussians, his experiences with war, and
the Earthquake at Lisbon, he came to refute the idea
of an “optimistic” world.
 He became keenly aware of suffering, human frailty,
and the many things that threaten our existence.
 At this point, which was rather late in his career, he
started writing the “philosophical tale”.
 He often denied they were his because (1) the novel
was not well received and (2) they were satirical.
The Philosophical Tale
 Voltaire wrote in many genres, including a genre
called the “Philosophical Tale”—this is best
represented by Candide
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A very specialized genre quite popular in the 18th century
Should not be read realistically--the purpose is not to present
a believable version of life, as in a novel.
These works are works of satire--they are intended to use
humor to criticize some philosophical position.
Philosophical Tales
 A philosophical tale tests a certain proposition
 Gulliver's Travels Book IV tested the proposition that humans
were "rational animals."
 Candide is designed to test the proposition that this is the best
of all possible worlds.
 This is known as the philosophy of "Optimism"
Symbols and Themes
Religion:
 Voltaire was a "deist"--he was not an atheist, but he
believed that God was an organizer, or a clockmaker, and
that, after organizing the world and creating certain
natural laws, he allowed it to run by itself.
 Deism is derived entirely from reason--God is not
experienced through revelation or sacred text; he is
deduced from reason and from the evidence of the
natural world.
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This was a very popular religious position among Enlightenment
thinkers--Thomas Jefferson was also a deist.
It is very consistent with Enlightenment ideals: the search for
foundational principles in morality, law, politics, art, music, and
literature (to name only a few).
Deism
 Voltaire spent much of his life crusading against
what he called l'infâme (the infamy), which, for him,
meant a kind of hostile religious fanaticism and
intolerance.
 Voltaire himself was exiled from both Catholic
France and Calvinist Geneva
 He managed to make enemies on both sides of a
major issue--a real accomplishment for a satirist.
Religion –More
 Some examples of this kind of intolerance in Candide
 is the Pope Antichrist? (attack on Protestantism)
 the auto da fe (attack on Catholicism)
 In the city of El Dorado, there are no monks or priests
 Voltaire is working positively to show how well society can be run
without religious discourse.
 Many of the sympathetic characters in Candide are from
organizations on the fringes of organized religion
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The Anabaptists (Jacques the Anabaptist)
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A German sect of adult baptizers
Tended towards socialism
Everyone hated them.
Manichees (Martin)
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Believed that good and evil were equally matched and equally important.
An official Catholic "heresy"--you could get burned for it.
Themes and Symbols
 Eden / Paradise
 Westphalia
 The garden
 El Dorado
 What is this novel saying about…?
 War
 Wealth
 Civilized society
 Organized religion
 Aristocracy and class levels
So?
 “While it is a ferocious attack on philosophical
optimism, Candide is not a pessimistic work, for it
proclaims the human capacity to survive the worst
calamities and to endure and even prosper in a world
replete with war, cruelty, misery, persecution, and
religious intolerance” --Gita May