Voltaire
Ashley Rhoden and Brandon Robinson
Early Life
• Francois Marie Arouet (pen
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name Voltaire) was born on
November 21, 1694 in Paris.
the fourth of five children, to a
well-to-do public official
young Voltaire was shaped by
his contacts with the English
aristocrat, freethinker,and
Jacobite Lord Bolingbroke.
prestigious Collège Louis-leGrand in Paris he also acquired
a first-class education
Father was frustrated that he
wanted to become a writer
The English Period (1726–1729)
• Voltaire's transition into his
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mature philosophe identity began
Voltaire met Bolingbroke,
Jonathan Swift, and John Gay
knew the other Newtonians
(followers of Isaac Newton) and
soon became proficient enough in
English to write letters and fiction
Visited Holland and became close
with the journalists there
A Change of
Direction
• Received his father’s inheritance
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so he never struggled financially
in his life
fall of 1732, the next stage in his
career began and he lived in the
royal court of Versailles, a sign
that his re-establishment in French
society was complete
scandal forced him to flee Paris
and to establish himself
permanently at the Du Châtelet
family estate
Officials granted Voltaire
permission to re-enter Paris
in1729, turned from poet to
philosophe
New Beginnings
• Married Emilie du Châtele
• Voltaire’s ideas for writing letters
about the darker side of things
were inspired by Swift’s Gulliver’s
Travels
• Votaire wrote letters about several
aspects of English society; titled
Letters On England
• Eventually wrote about English
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religion and Parliament
Letters On England was published
without Voltaire’s consent
Ran away to Cirey, England with
du Châtele
An Influential Name
• 1745, named the Royal
Historiographer of France,
bestowed upon him from Louis
XIV and the Swedish King Charles
II and accepted invitation to court
in Prussia
• Essais sur les moeurs et l'esprit
des nations (1751)
• began to craft an anti-Leibnizian
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discourse in the 1740s
satire of the President of the Royal
Academy of Sciences of Berlin
exiled him from Prussia
Here to Stay
• Settled in Geneva
• Became a newly self-conscious
philosophes concerned with
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political and intellectual change
Encyclopédiste was realeased;
scandal occurs
Dictionnaire philosophique, his
book republished his articles from
the original Encyclopédie
Candide, ou l'Optimisme, text is a
serious attack on Leibnizian
philosophy
Died in 1778
The Enlightenment
Period
• 18th century cultural changes
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characterized by a loss of faith in
religion, science, and democratic
republic
Enlightenment ideas were strongly
influenced by the Constitution of
the U.S.
Europe-wide movement
In Relation to
Candide
• Dr. Pangloss: absolute
Optimism is a mockery of the
philosophy of an
Enlightenment thinker named
Leibniz
• El Dorado: Voltaire’s vision of
an ideal society.
“Each player must accept
the cards life deals him or
her: but once they are in
hand, he or she alone must
decide how to play the
cards in order to win the
game.”
-Voltaire