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