By Voltaire

Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet l.j.): One of the greatest writers in history--holds a place in French literature and history roughly comparable to the place that Shakespeare holds in English literature.

Wrote about 75 plays Wrote several works of epic

and satirical poetry--Most famous poem, L'henriade (A French national epic about Henry IV of France)

Wrote voluminous works of history The Century of Louis XIV

Articles for the French Encyclopedie

Wrote scientific works Wrote a great deal of literary

criticism

Dr. Ralph—”Doctor” who died at Minden in 1759 Voltaire denied authorship to

protect himself from punishment. Pseudonym is obviously false = causes a sense of playfulness.

Voltaire wrote in many genres, including a genre called the “Philosophical Tale”—this is best represented by CandideA very specialized genre quite popular in

the 18th centuryShould 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.

A philosophical tale tests a certain propositionGulliver'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"

It was formalized in the eighteenth century by Gottfreid Wilhelm von Leibnitz and popularized by Alexander Pope

German mathematician

Co-inventor of calculus

Philosopher and theologian

Developer of the philosophical theory of “optimism”

Applied mathematical formulas to theological issues

1) If God is all powerful2) And God is moral___________________________________

Then everything that happens in the world must be the best thing that could possibly happen

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.

Greatest English Neoclassical poet.

Translator of The Iliad and The Odyssey

Master of the closed heroic couplet

English populizer of Leibnitz’s theory of optimism

Candide Our naïve protagonist

Cunegonde Candide’s love

Baron of Thunder-ten-tronchkh “powerful” lord in Westphalia

(Germany) Kicks out Candide for kissing

Cunegonde Baron Jr. (aka Jesuit Baron of

Thunder-ten-tronchkh) Jesuit Reverend Father /

Commander in Paraguay Candide “kills” him

Dr. Pangloss “All Tounge” = proponent of

optimism “Hanged” by the Inquisition

James (Jacques) the Anabaptist Protestant who opposed infant

baptism Provides charity to Candide in

Holland. Pays for Pangloss’s “cure”

from syphilis Takes Candide and Pangloss

to Lisbon on business The Grand Inquisitor

Auto-da-fe = literally “act of faith” in Portuguese—ceremony in which heretics are burned

Noticed Cunegonde at mass—shares her with Don Issachar

Don Issachar Jewish man who bought

Cunegonde from the handsome Bulgar captain.

Old Woman Daughter of Pope Urban and

Princess Palestrina Voltaire’s omitted footnote:

“Observe the author’s extreme discretion! Until now there has never been any pope named Urban X. He stops short of attributing a bastard to a known pope. Oh, what circumspection! Oh, what delicacy of conscience!”

Trials & tribulations Age 14 = beauty, pirates,

slavery, death of mother, eunuch in Morocco, slavery again, plague, Turkish general, loss of a buttock, Russian noble (Boyar), barmaid, servant to Don Issachar

Governor of Buenos Aires Cunegonde marries him to

avoid persecution (regarding the murder of the Grand Inquisitor)

Cacambo Candide’s valet “street smart” and acts as a

foil to Candide Monsieur Vanderdendur

Tortured his slave—took his left leg and right hand

Swindles Candide, steals his last two sheep, but meets a suitable end when his ship is attacked by pirates.

Martin Poor scholar who Candide

pays to travel with him Manichean = a belief that

two principles, one good, the other evil, contended as equals for mastery of the universe. Catholic church denied that a powerful, evil force necessarily kept goodness in check.

Knows El Dorado

Marquis de Parolignac Plays cards with Candide Love tryst

Abbe A member of the clergy from the region of

Perigord in southwestern France Shows Candide Paris Writes “letters” from Cunegonde and turns

Candide over to the police Paquette

Pangloss’s “maid” from Ch. 1 With Brother Giroflee in Venice Candide’s experiment about the power of money

Lord Pocucurante Venician nobleman; supposed to be happy

Drift from Cayenne…river goes under a “vault of terrifying rocks that soared into the sky.” Original homeland of the Incas Set up as a constitutional monarchy – the king governs

with the approval of the people Religion = belief in one god, no prayer as it is not

needed (have everything!) No law = not needed.

Gold and jewels are worthless = dirt. Food = parrots, condors, monkeys, hummingbirds,

etc. Cacambo in the lead Vow not to leave El Dorado vs. Candide’s/Cacambo’s

decision to leave – “to be happy no longer” Pay off the Governor of Buenos Aires

Location: landed on the shore of the Propontis and came to the house of a Transylvanian Prince (Turkey)

Candide’s marriage to Cunegonde Spite Cunegonde’s beauty

Members on the Farm: Candide, Cunegonde, Old Woman, Martin, Pangloss, Cacambo, and eventually Paquette and Brother Giroflee. What happened to the Baron Jr.?

Turk’s advice: Power of work “That is well said, but we must cultivate our

garden.”

A close reading of Chapter One establishes most of the major themes that will recur in the book.

Candide lives in a “perfect” world, which he will always try to recapture.

At the end of Book One, he is kicked out of Paradise (kind of a metaphor for humanity’s “fall” from Eden).

Candide will always remember this world as an ideal time, and Cunegonde as the ideal woman.

He will live his life trying to recapture this ideal world rather than trying to find an attainable happiness.

This is a satire on the general human tendency to always believe that there was a “Golden Age” that individuals and societies are fallen from.

The attack on Optimism The stand in for Leibnitz in

this satire is Dr. Pangloss (Dr. All Tongue)

 Pangloss’s philosophy in Ch. 1 “It has been proven, that

things cannot be other than what they are, for since everything is made for an end, everything is necessarily for the best end.

Glasses, legs, stones, & pigs

Ch. 4 Syphilis is "good" because it

gave us chocolate and cochineal (scarlet dye)

Ch. 5 The belief that all happens

for the good prevents Candide from rescuing James, the Anabaptist.

Earthquake in Lisbon = Candide is dying and Pangloss wants to prove his point rather than help him.

“This earthquake is not a unique phenomenon…same causes, same effects”

The rebuttal to Pangloss is the entire novel of Candide

The narrative progresses from one disaster to another

Almost all of the events that Voltaire chronicles (earthquakes, wars, auto's da fe, etc.) were historical occurrences.

These events, Voltaire believes, are a rebuttal to the philosophy of optimism. (And not an entirely fair one either; the philosophy can certainly accommodate them.)

There IS a divine providence at work in Candide. Things happen that are completely impossible, but this providence almost always seems to work AGAINST people, as if God were going out of his way to make Candide miserable (rather than happy.)

Bulgars =Prussians/ French troops of Frederick the Great.

Oreillons = “big ears” tribe of Indians in Peru who pierced and distended their ears.

Monarchy Six kings with

Cacambo

Countries France

Troops Candide & Martin’s trip

to Paris England

Death of Admiral John Byng

Religion Monks and sex Jews = anti-Semitic Catholicism

“Let’s eat a Jesuit!” Billet de confession

(aka indulgence)

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. 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).

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.

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 The Anabaptists (Jacques the

Anabaptist) A German sect of adult baptizers Tended towards socialism Everyone hated them.

Manichees (Martin) Believed that good and evil were

equally matched and equally important. An official Catholic "heresy"--you could

get burned for it.

Eden / ParadiseWestphaliaThe garden

El Dorado Others?

What is this novel saying about…?WarWealthCivilized societyOrganized religionAristocracy and

class levels