Voltaire
Voltaire
The most appealing of all philosophes. His inimitable wit – tickled, excited and not infrequently scorched his readers.
Features of his writing:
skepticism, humour, satire and stinging criticism
crusade against tyranny and bigotry
rebellious and heretical writings kept him on the move
imprisoned in the Bastille for lampooning the Regent; this caused within him a deep rooted hatred of tyranny
exiled: three years spent in England:
learned the English language
got acquainted with the political system
familiarized himself with the thoughts of Locke and Newton
influenced by the neo-classical writers, and Shakespeare’s plays (used to watch the performances)
the euphoria of the Glorious Revolution (1684) impacted him
appreciated the religious tolerance, and harmonious functioning of monarchy, the House of Commons and the Upper House of Nobles; system of jurisprudence
(all these contrasted with systems in his own country; hence he decided to write on these.)
Works:
Philosophical Letters on the English: covertly attacks the cruder institutions in France; his first contribution to the Encyclopedie.
Lettres Philosophiques: noted for its sparkling wit, biting irony and crisp, pithy style; set a model of 18th c. French prose.
A comment on religion in England: “An Englishman, like a free man, goes to heaven by whatever route he chooses.”
This book gave rise to a furore on religious and political grounds. Obvious passages of heresy, and downright libellous. Laughs at the rite of baptism. Praises the Quakers who did not have a firm ecclesiastical organization or priests or sacraments.
The book resulted in his arrest. It was burned by the hangman.
Zaire: (1732) a play on the conflict of divided loyalties; illustrates ‘the accident of faith’; dogmatism of religion is proved irrelevant. Yet, this work was well received.
Summary of the play (courtesy: Wikipedia)
Zaïre (Zara), a Christian slave who had been captured as a baby by the Muslim armies during the Crusades. She and another captured Christian child, Nérestan, were raised in the palace of Orosmane (Osman), the Sultan of Jerusalem. The play opens two years after Nérestan had been granted permission by Osman to return to France to raise a ransom for the other Christian slaves. In his absence, Zaïre and the Sultan have fallen in love. Nérestan returns with the ransom on their wedding day. Although Zaïre does not wish to be released herself, she escorts the elderly Christian prisoner, Lusignan, to the camp of Nérestan and his knights. Lusignan, a descendant of the Christian princes of Jerusalem, recognizes the cross that had been given to Zaïre as a baby and realizes that she and Nérestan are his lost children. Zaïre's brother and father are now horrified at the idea that she will marry a Muslim and adopt his religion. They make her promise to be baptized that night and keep it secret from her future husband until the knights and the freed slaves have departed. Orosmane, already suspicious that Zaïre has asked him to delay their wedding, intercepts a letter from Nérestan with instructions for meeting him and the priest for her baptism. The Sultan believes that she is planning an assignation with her lover and goes to the appointed place himself. He has Nérestan seized and stabs Zaïre to death with his dagger. When he learns the truth, he is overcome with remorse and commits suicide with the same dagger.
Candide: his magnum opus.
A novella
Titles given to translations: Candide, or All the Best/ Candide, or The Optimist/ Candide, or Optimism
Picarescque mode: describes the adventures and debilitating experiences of Candide, the bastard nephew of a baron.
Bildungsroman
Satire
Improbable plot
Historical base: Lisbon earthquake (1 Nov, 1755) and the Seven Years War - (1756-1763) - both these are considered as motives for the work.
crusade against tyranny and bigotry
rebellious and heretical writings kept him on the move
imprisoned in the Bastille for lampooning the Regent; this caused within him a deep rooted hatred of tyranny
exiled: three years spent in England:
learned the English language
got acquainted with the political system
familiarized himself with the thoughts of Locke and Newton
influenced by the neo-classical writers, and Shakespeare’s plays (used to watch the performances)
the euphoria of the Glorious Revolution (1684) impacted him
appreciated the religious tolerance, and harmonious functioning of monarchy, the House of Commons and the Upper House of Nobles; system of jurisprudence
(all these contrasted with systems in his own country; hence he decided to write on these.)
Works:
Philosophical Letters on the English: covertly attacks the cruder institutions in France; his first contribution to the Encyclopedie.
Lettres Philosophiques: noted for its sparkling wit, biting irony and crisp, pithy style; set a model of 18th c. French prose.
A comment on religion in England: “An Englishman, like a free man, goes to heaven by whatever route he chooses.”
This book gave rise to a furore on religious and political grounds. Obvious passages of heresy, and downright libellous. Laughs at the rite of baptism. Praises the Quakers who did not have a firm ecclesiastical organization or priests or sacraments.
The book resulted in his arrest. It was burned by the hangman.
Zaire: (1732) a play on the conflict of divided loyalties; illustrates ‘the accident of faith’; dogmatism of religion is proved irrelevant. Yet, this work was well received.
Summary of the play (courtesy: Wikipedia)
Zaïre (Zara), a Christian slave who had been captured as a baby by the Muslim armies during the Crusades. She and another captured Christian child, Nérestan, were raised in the palace of Orosmane (Osman), the Sultan of Jerusalem. The play opens two years after Nérestan had been granted permission by Osman to return to France to raise a ransom for the other Christian slaves. In his absence, Zaïre and the Sultan have fallen in love. Nérestan returns with the ransom on their wedding day. Although Zaïre does not wish to be released herself, she escorts the elderly Christian prisoner, Lusignan, to the camp of Nérestan and his knights. Lusignan, a descendant of the Christian princes of Jerusalem, recognizes the cross that had been given to Zaïre as a baby and realizes that she and Nérestan are his lost children. Zaïre's brother and father are now horrified at the idea that she will marry a Muslim and adopt his religion. They make her promise to be baptized that night and keep it secret from her future husband until the knights and the freed slaves have departed. Orosmane, already suspicious that Zaïre has asked him to delay their wedding, intercepts a letter from Nérestan with instructions for meeting him and the priest for her baptism. The Sultan believes that she is planning an assignation with her lover and goes to the appointed place himself. He has Nérestan seized and stabs Zaïre to death with his dagger. When he learns the truth, he is overcome with remorse and commits suicide with the same dagger.
Candide: his magnum opus.
A novella
Titles given to translations: Candide, or All the Best/ Candide, or The Optimist/ Candide, or Optimism
Picarescque mode: describes the adventures and debilitating experiences of Candide, the bastard nephew of a baron.
Bildungsroman
Satire
Improbable plot
Historical base: Lisbon earthquake (1 Nov, 1755) and the Seven Years War - (1756-1763) - both these are considered as motives for the work.
A burlesque on the philosophy of Leibniz, a German mathematician and thinker.
Leibniz’ Philosophy of Optimism: This world is the best possible world God could have created. Hence, “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”.
This philosophy is opposed by Pierre Bayle, a French thinker, who argues that reason should not be used to make sense of evil.
Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned to the public because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition, and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. (Wikipedia)
Characters:
Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh
Cunegonde, the Baron’s daughter
Candide, the baron’s nephew
Pangloss, a philosopher (a caricature of Leibniz); Candide is influenced by his thoughts to a great extent of time, but he shifts his views in the end.
A chambermaid
Jaques, the Anabaptist philosopher who helps Candide; he drowns in an attempt to save a sailor
A woman who helps Candide to be reunited with Cunegonde
A Portuguese Commander (Cunegonde’s brother)
Martin, a philosopher (modelled on Pierre Bayle)
Plot Overview - courtesy: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/summary/
Candide is the illegitimate nephew of a German baron. He grows up in the baron’s castle under the tutelage of the scholar Pangloss, who teaches him that this world is “the best of all possible worlds.” Candide falls in love with the baron’s young daughter, Cunégonde. The baron catches the two kissing and expels Candide from his home. On his own for the first time, Candide is soon conscripted into the army of the Bulgars. He wanders away from camp for a brief walk, and is brutally flogged as a deserter. After witnessing a horrific battle, he manages to escape and travels to Holland.
In Holland, a kindly Anabaptist named Jacques takes Candide in. Candide runs into a deformed beggar and discovers that it is Pangloss. Pangloss explains that he has contracted syphilis and that Cunégonde and her family have all been brutally murdered by the Bulgar army. Nonetheless, he maintains his optimistic outlook. Jacques takes Pangloss in as well. The three travel to Lisbon together, but before they arrive their ship runs into a storm and Jacques is drowned. Candide and Pangloss arrive in Lisbon to find it destroyed by an earthquake and under the control of the Inquisition. Pangloss is soon hanged as a heretic, and Candide is flogged for listening with approval to Pangloss’s philosophy. After his beating, an old woman dresses Candide’s wounds and then, to his astonishment, takes him to Cunégonde. Cunégonde explains that though the Bulgars killed the rest of her family, she was merely raped and then captured by a captain, who sold her to a Jew named Don Isaachar. At present, she is a sex slave jointly owned by Don Isaachar and the Grand Inquisitor of Lisbon. Each of Cunégonde’s two owners arrive in turn as she and Candide are talking, and Candide kills them both. Terrified, Candide, the old woman, and Cunégonde flee and board a ship bound for South America. During their journey, the old woman relates her own story. She was born the Pope’s daughter but has suffered a litany of misfortunes that include rape, enslavement, and cannibalism.
Candide and Cunégonde plan to marry, but as soon as they arrive in Buenos Aires, the governor, Don Fernando, proposes to Cunégonde. Thinking of her own financial welfare, she accepts. Authorities looking for the murderer of the Grand Inquisitor arrive from Portugal in pursuit of Candide. Along with a newly acquired valet named Cacambo, Candide flees to territory controlled by Jesuits who are revolting against the Spanish government. After demanding an audience with a Jesuit commander, Candide discovers that the commander is Cunégonde’s brother, the baron, who also managed to escape from the Bulgars. Candide announces that he plans to marry Cunégonde, but the baron insists that his sister will never marry a commoner. Enraged, Candide runs the baron through with his sword. He and Cacambo escape into the wilderness, where they narrowly avoid being eaten by a native tribe called the Biglugs.
After traveling for days, Candide and Cacambo find themselves in the land of Eldorado, where gold and jewels litter the streets. This utopian country has advanced scientific knowledge, no religious conflict, no court system, and places no value on its plentiful gold and jewels. But Candide longs to return to Cunégonde, and after a month in Eldorado he and Cacambo depart with countless invaluable jewels loaded onto swift pack sheep. When they reach the territory of Surinam, Candide sends Cacambo to Buenos Aires with instructions to use part of the fortune to purchase Cunégonde from Don Fernando and then to meet him in Venice. An unscrupulous merchant named Vanderdendur steals much of Candide’s fortune, dampening his optimism somewhat. Frustrated, Candide sails off to France with a specially chosen companion, an unrepentantly pessimistic scholar named Martin. On the way there, he recovers part of his fortune when a Spanish captain sinks Vanderdendur’s ship. Candide takes this as proof that there is justice in the world, but Martin staunchly disagrees.
In Paris, Candide and Martin mingle with the social elite. Candide’s fortune attracts a number of hangers-on, several of whom succeed in filching jewels from him. Candide and Martin proceed to Venice, where, to Candide’s dismay, Cunégonde and Cacambo are nowhere to be found. However, they do encounter other colorful individuals there, including Paquette, the chambermaid-turned-prostitute who gave Pangloss syphilis, and Count Pococurante, a wealthy Venetian who is hopelessly bored with the cultural treasures that surround him. Eventually, Cacambo, now a slave of a deposed Turkish monarch, surfaces. He explains that Cunégonde is in Constantinople, having herself been enslaved along with the old woman. Martin, Cacambo, and Candide depart for Turkey, where Candide purchases Cacambo’s freedom.
Candide discovers Pangloss and the baron in a Turkish chain gang. Both have actually survived their apparent deaths and, after suffering various misfortunes, arrived in Turkey. Despite everything, Pangloss remains an optimist. An overjoyed Candide purchases their freedom, and he and his growing retinue go on to find Cunégonde and the old woman. Cunégonde has grown ugly since Candide last saw her, but he purchases her freedom anyway. He also buys the old woman’s freedom and purchases a farm outside of Constantinople. He keeps his longstanding promise to marry Cunégonde, but only after being forced to send the baron, who still cannot abide his sister marrying a commoner, back to the chain gang. Candide, Cunégonde, Cacambo, Pangloss, and the old woman settle into a comfortable life on the farm but soon find themselves growing bored and quarrelsome. Finally, Candide encounters a farmer who lives a simple life, works hard, and avoids vice and leisure. Inspired, Candide and his friends take to cultivating a garden in earnest. All their time and energy goes into the work, and none is left over for philosophical speculation. At last everyone is fulfilled and happy.
Analysing the Play
Voltaire’s satire and views regarding the presentation of an optimistic view of the world when the reality is shocking, as in France.
Criticism on the situations of war, oppression, persecution and immorality practiced both by the ruling class and people of religion.
The conclusion can have two opposing interpretations – a gloomy view of the world, or a bright one. The garden can stand for many things: the earthly Eden of man’s own creation (France was visibly progressing towards this), or the “Encyclopedie” that will help Voltaire and his friends to keep aloof from the external world with its persecutions and censorship.
Dr. Johnson and Candide
A note on “Rasselas”
Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Rasselas,_Prince_of_Abissinia
Rasselas, the fourth son of the King of Abyssinia is shut up in a beautiful valley called The Happy Valley, "till the order of succession should call him to the throne". Rasselas enlists the help of an artist who is also known as an engineer to help with his escape from the Valley by plunging themselves out through the air, though is unsuccessful in this attempt. He grows weary of the factitious entertainments of the place, and after much brooding escapes with his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah and his poet-friend Imlac by digging under the wall of the valley. They are to see the world and search for happiness in places such as Cairo and Suez. After some sojourn in Egypt, where they encounter various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive the futility of their search and abruptly return to Abyssinia after none of their hopes for happiness are achieved.
Comparison to Candide
Both works are published in the same year – 1759; Candide came out a few months before Rasselas.
While the story is thematically similar to Candide by Voltaire, both concern young men travelling in the company of honoured teachers, encountering and examining human suffering in an attempt to determine the root of happiness – their root concerns are distinctly different. Voltaire was very directly satirising the widely read philosophical work by Gottfried Leibniz in which Leibniz asserts that the world, no matter how we may perceive it, is necessarily the "best of all possible worlds". In contrast the question Rasselas confronts most directly is whether or not humanity is essentially capable of attaining happiness. Rasselas questions his choices in life and what new choices to make in order to achieve this happiness. Writing as a devout Christian, Johnson makes through his characters no blanket attacks on the viability of a religious response to this question, as Voltaire does, and while the story is in places light and humorous, it is not a piece of satire, as is Candide.
Leibniz’ Philosophy of Optimism: This world is the best possible world God could have created. Hence, “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”.
This philosophy is opposed by Pierre Bayle, a French thinker, who argues that reason should not be used to make sense of evil.
Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned to the public because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition, and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. (Wikipedia)
Characters:
Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh
Cunegonde, the Baron’s daughter
Candide, the baron’s nephew
Pangloss, a philosopher (a caricature of Leibniz); Candide is influenced by his thoughts to a great extent of time, but he shifts his views in the end.
A chambermaid
Jaques, the Anabaptist philosopher who helps Candide; he drowns in an attempt to save a sailor
A woman who helps Candide to be reunited with Cunegonde
A Portuguese Commander (Cunegonde’s brother)
Martin, a philosopher (modelled on Pierre Bayle)
Plot Overview - courtesy: https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/summary/
Candide is the illegitimate nephew of a German baron. He grows up in the baron’s castle under the tutelage of the scholar Pangloss, who teaches him that this world is “the best of all possible worlds.” Candide falls in love with the baron’s young daughter, Cunégonde. The baron catches the two kissing and expels Candide from his home. On his own for the first time, Candide is soon conscripted into the army of the Bulgars. He wanders away from camp for a brief walk, and is brutally flogged as a deserter. After witnessing a horrific battle, he manages to escape and travels to Holland.
In Holland, a kindly Anabaptist named Jacques takes Candide in. Candide runs into a deformed beggar and discovers that it is Pangloss. Pangloss explains that he has contracted syphilis and that Cunégonde and her family have all been brutally murdered by the Bulgar army. Nonetheless, he maintains his optimistic outlook. Jacques takes Pangloss in as well. The three travel to Lisbon together, but before they arrive their ship runs into a storm and Jacques is drowned. Candide and Pangloss arrive in Lisbon to find it destroyed by an earthquake and under the control of the Inquisition. Pangloss is soon hanged as a heretic, and Candide is flogged for listening with approval to Pangloss’s philosophy. After his beating, an old woman dresses Candide’s wounds and then, to his astonishment, takes him to Cunégonde. Cunégonde explains that though the Bulgars killed the rest of her family, she was merely raped and then captured by a captain, who sold her to a Jew named Don Isaachar. At present, she is a sex slave jointly owned by Don Isaachar and the Grand Inquisitor of Lisbon. Each of Cunégonde’s two owners arrive in turn as she and Candide are talking, and Candide kills them both. Terrified, Candide, the old woman, and Cunégonde flee and board a ship bound for South America. During their journey, the old woman relates her own story. She was born the Pope’s daughter but has suffered a litany of misfortunes that include rape, enslavement, and cannibalism.
Candide and Cunégonde plan to marry, but as soon as they arrive in Buenos Aires, the governor, Don Fernando, proposes to Cunégonde. Thinking of her own financial welfare, she accepts. Authorities looking for the murderer of the Grand Inquisitor arrive from Portugal in pursuit of Candide. Along with a newly acquired valet named Cacambo, Candide flees to territory controlled by Jesuits who are revolting against the Spanish government. After demanding an audience with a Jesuit commander, Candide discovers that the commander is Cunégonde’s brother, the baron, who also managed to escape from the Bulgars. Candide announces that he plans to marry Cunégonde, but the baron insists that his sister will never marry a commoner. Enraged, Candide runs the baron through with his sword. He and Cacambo escape into the wilderness, where they narrowly avoid being eaten by a native tribe called the Biglugs.
After traveling for days, Candide and Cacambo find themselves in the land of Eldorado, where gold and jewels litter the streets. This utopian country has advanced scientific knowledge, no religious conflict, no court system, and places no value on its plentiful gold and jewels. But Candide longs to return to Cunégonde, and after a month in Eldorado he and Cacambo depart with countless invaluable jewels loaded onto swift pack sheep. When they reach the territory of Surinam, Candide sends Cacambo to Buenos Aires with instructions to use part of the fortune to purchase Cunégonde from Don Fernando and then to meet him in Venice. An unscrupulous merchant named Vanderdendur steals much of Candide’s fortune, dampening his optimism somewhat. Frustrated, Candide sails off to France with a specially chosen companion, an unrepentantly pessimistic scholar named Martin. On the way there, he recovers part of his fortune when a Spanish captain sinks Vanderdendur’s ship. Candide takes this as proof that there is justice in the world, but Martin staunchly disagrees.
In Paris, Candide and Martin mingle with the social elite. Candide’s fortune attracts a number of hangers-on, several of whom succeed in filching jewels from him. Candide and Martin proceed to Venice, where, to Candide’s dismay, Cunégonde and Cacambo are nowhere to be found. However, they do encounter other colorful individuals there, including Paquette, the chambermaid-turned-prostitute who gave Pangloss syphilis, and Count Pococurante, a wealthy Venetian who is hopelessly bored with the cultural treasures that surround him. Eventually, Cacambo, now a slave of a deposed Turkish monarch, surfaces. He explains that Cunégonde is in Constantinople, having herself been enslaved along with the old woman. Martin, Cacambo, and Candide depart for Turkey, where Candide purchases Cacambo’s freedom.
Candide discovers Pangloss and the baron in a Turkish chain gang. Both have actually survived their apparent deaths and, after suffering various misfortunes, arrived in Turkey. Despite everything, Pangloss remains an optimist. An overjoyed Candide purchases their freedom, and he and his growing retinue go on to find Cunégonde and the old woman. Cunégonde has grown ugly since Candide last saw her, but he purchases her freedom anyway. He also buys the old woman’s freedom and purchases a farm outside of Constantinople. He keeps his longstanding promise to marry Cunégonde, but only after being forced to send the baron, who still cannot abide his sister marrying a commoner, back to the chain gang. Candide, Cunégonde, Cacambo, Pangloss, and the old woman settle into a comfortable life on the farm but soon find themselves growing bored and quarrelsome. Finally, Candide encounters a farmer who lives a simple life, works hard, and avoids vice and leisure. Inspired, Candide and his friends take to cultivating a garden in earnest. All their time and energy goes into the work, and none is left over for philosophical speculation. At last everyone is fulfilled and happy.
Analysing the Play
Voltaire’s satire and views regarding the presentation of an optimistic view of the world when the reality is shocking, as in France.
Criticism on the situations of war, oppression, persecution and immorality practiced both by the ruling class and people of religion.
The conclusion can have two opposing interpretations – a gloomy view of the world, or a bright one. The garden can stand for many things: the earthly Eden of man’s own creation (France was visibly progressing towards this), or the “Encyclopedie” that will help Voltaire and his friends to keep aloof from the external world with its persecutions and censorship.
Dr. Johnson and Candide
A note on “Rasselas”
Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_Rasselas,_Prince_of_Abissinia
Rasselas, the fourth son of the King of Abyssinia is shut up in a beautiful valley called The Happy Valley, "till the order of succession should call him to the throne". Rasselas enlists the help of an artist who is also known as an engineer to help with his escape from the Valley by plunging themselves out through the air, though is unsuccessful in this attempt. He grows weary of the factitious entertainments of the place, and after much brooding escapes with his sister Nekayah, her attendant Pekuah and his poet-friend Imlac by digging under the wall of the valley. They are to see the world and search for happiness in places such as Cairo and Suez. After some sojourn in Egypt, where they encounter various classes of society and undergo a few mild adventures, they perceive the futility of their search and abruptly return to Abyssinia after none of their hopes for happiness are achieved.
Comparison to Candide
Both works are published in the same year – 1759; Candide came out a few months before Rasselas.
While the story is thematically similar to Candide by Voltaire, both concern young men travelling in the company of honoured teachers, encountering and examining human suffering in an attempt to determine the root of happiness – their root concerns are distinctly different. Voltaire was very directly satirising the widely read philosophical work by Gottfried Leibniz in which Leibniz asserts that the world, no matter how we may perceive it, is necessarily the "best of all possible worlds". In contrast the question Rasselas confronts most directly is whether or not humanity is essentially capable of attaining happiness. Rasselas questions his choices in life and what new choices to make in order to achieve this happiness. Writing as a devout Christian, Johnson makes through his characters no blanket attacks on the viability of a religious response to this question, as Voltaire does, and while the story is in places light and humorous, it is not a piece of satire, as is Candide.
Prepared by Jacob Eapen Kunnath
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