Candide by Voltaire
NOTES
Time Period
Enlightenment—18th century France and
England
 A.k.a. the Age of Reason
 Climate of Inquiry

Lessoning Control of the Church
The Protestant Reformation
 The Printing Press
 Scientific Developments
 The New World (America!)

Philosophies of the Time
Rationalism: Rene Descartes (math)–
humans, by reason alone, can discover
universal truths
 Rationalism: Sir Isaac Newton—
mechanical science. All truth found in
nature; rejection of supernatural religion.
Emphasis placed on principles of
deduction (1687)
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Philosophy cont.
Deism—the clockmaker God: God made
the world, then he let it alone; no divine
intervention
 Optimism
 1) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz—German
mathematician and scientist. Founder of
the philosophy of optimism.

Leibnitz cont.—world is organized
according to a pre-established harmony.
There is a reason for everything that
happens. Followed two main assumptions:
1) God is perfect; therefore
 2) Of all the worlds God could have
created, he must have made this one
perfect, the best.
 Leibnitz believed evil had a beneficial
value.
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2) Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
English poet—wrote heavily about belief of
optimism
 Voltaire knew Pope in England (during V’s
exile) and admired him until V. decided
that optimism was a bunch of hooey
 “A little learning is a dangerous thing”
 “Whatever is, is right”

3) Jean Jacques Rousseau (17121778)
Humanity is naturally good but is corrupted
by the environment, education, and
government
 Since society brings out aggression and
egotism, it is better for man to be a “noble
savage”
 Rousseau sides with Pope and Leibnitz
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Voltaire (1694-1778)
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French philosopher and rational skeptic
Believed in writing the truth
He championed knowledge against ignorance,
reason against superstition, skepticism against
theology
Twice imprisoned in the Bastille b/c of his writing
and his big mouth
Twice exiled
Nearly everything he published was banned,
burned or suppressed
Voltaire cont.
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His famous cry was “Crush the infamous thing
(superstition)!”
He constantly fought against the system that
tortured and plundered in the name of religion
“Men…enriched by your sweat and
misery…made you superstitious, not that you
might fear God, but that you might fear them.”
He was NOT an atheist
Voltaire cont.
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Considered “the fountainhead of the
Enlightenment and the intellectual spearhead of
the French Revolution”
A conservative in all but religion
Believed in a God who was a creator and
punisher of evil, but he attacked any religion he
felt to be guilty of superstition, intolerance, or
persecution
His town—Ferney (teacher will comment on)
Quotes by and about Voltaire
Voltaire: “If God did not exist, it would be
necessary to invent Him.”
 Victor Hugo: “He was an age. To name
Voltaire is to characterize the entire
eighteenth century.”
 Will Durant: “Italy had a Renaissance,
Germany had a Reformation, but France
had Voltaire.”
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Influences on Candide
Leibnitz, Pope, and Rousseau :Optimism
 The Seven Years War: between France
and Prussia—very bloody war
 The Lisbon earthquake: Voltaire wrote
Candide as a direct response to this event
in 1755; the quake, a tidal wave, and a
resulting fire left 30,000-40,000 dead.

Influences cont.
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Followers of optimism explained horrors away
with the idea that it was all for the best: the living
would inherit from the dead; the city would be
rebuilt, providing jobs. If it had not happened
there, another place would have suffered.
Voltaire did not accept this. He wrote Candide to
illustrate what he perceived as the stupidity of
this type of optimism. He wrote the whole novel
in three days at the age of sixty-five.
Technique in Candide
Voltaire intends for Candide to be a
satirical parody. He makes it a parody on
the popular adventure novel, and he
attacks nearly everything and everybody.
It deals with the problem of evil, both
natural and man-made.
 The satire is used to mock Rousseau and
those that abuse power.
 See the Reader’s Guide for more on
technique.
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CANDIDE (CH 1, 2, 17, 18, 19, 30, and
supplements) Background

Candide is subtitled “Optimism” and tells
a tale of the woes that befall a naïve
simpleton who is brought up to believe that
this world is the best of all possible worlds.
The point of Voltaire’s story is to show
how Candide’s optimism is foolish in a
world in which people’s lives are shaped
for the most part by cruel and
incomprehensible forces.
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The plot of Candide takes the form of a quest:
the young man’s quest for union with his
beloved, Cunegonde. They go through a series
of separations and reunions, as Cunegonde is
taken as booty by the Bulgarians, held prisoner
by the Grand Inquisitor, and forcibly kept as a
mistress by the Governor of Buenos Aires—in
this, the best of all possible worlds. What
happens to Candide himself is no better, but the
two lovers somehow survive. The tale is told with
great verve and hilarity, and, like all quests of
this kind, the journey involves much suffering but
ends in wisdom.
 Voltaire
makes fun of both the
adventure novels and the pastoral
romance novels of his time:
shipwrecks, kidnappings by rival
suitors, unexpected reunions between
long-lost characters, love-sick heroes,
far-off (and made-up) settings. This
entire book is a parody (mimics
another style for the purpose of
ridiculing it. Ex: Weird Al Yancovic’s
parodies on famous songs).
Literary Focus
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Satire is writing that ridicules human weakness,
vice, or folly in order to bring about social reform.
An expert satirist like Voltaire uses a variety of
tools to expose his subject to ridicule—from witty
barbs to heavy bludgeons that flatten his
opponent’s sacred cows. As Voltaire exposes
one absurdity after another, readers become
convinced that they would be fools not to agree
with his point of view.