NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... published. It was his comic masterpiece, Candide. 4 Voltaire had long opposed the extreme optimism of many people of his time that was expressed in the belief that this is the "best of all possible worlds" and that all that happens is for the best. How could the loss of more than 30, 000 lives in an earthquake be for the best? What place did the slaughter of the Seven Years War that ravaged Europe from 1756 to 1763 have in the best of all possible worlds? Voltaire's discussion of these questions can be found in Candide, his satirical, witty attack on optimism.
In this fast-moving philosophical tale of the young, innocent Candide's education in life, horror succeeds horror and catastrophe follows catastrophe until he eventually gives up his early optimistic views. To show how ridiculous he thought it was to be ever cheerful in the face of disaster, Voltaire used the technique of satire. Through exaggeration- the great number and extreme nature of the misfortunes that befall the characters- satire makes optimism seem not only preposterous, but also smug and self-righteous. However, the optimism that Voltaire attacked was not the optimism we usually think of. When you say that people are optimistic, you mean that they have a hopeful attitude toward life and the future. In Voltaire's time, optimism had been turned into a philosophical system that believed everything already was for the best, no matter how terrible it seemed.
This was a fatalistic and complacent philosophy that denied any need for change. To a man like Voltaire who believed in working to achieve a more just and humane society, philosophical optimism was an enemy. By the time Voltaire wrote Candide, he had already established his reputation as a writer and thinker. Most people today believe that Candide is Voltaire's greatest work. But to the readers of his own time, Candide was merely one in a long series of great achievements. Voltaire was celebrated as a poet and dramatist, as a philosopher, and as a commentator on the ills and hypocrisies of society.
In whatever capacity he exercised his pen, he was famous throughout Europe for his wit and intelligence. A controversial figure, Voltaire was both idolized and despised. His outspoken views on religion and politics were frequently in conflict with established opinions and caused him great difficulty with the censors. The publication of Candide followed a typical pattern for Voltaire's works.
It was published under an assumed name, to avoid prosecution. It was eagerly read by the public and sold as quickly as it could be printed. And it was condemned by the censors. 5 In 18 th-century France, censorship, and the royal permission required to publish anything, were powerful tools used by the state to inhibit criticism of the government or the Church. And punishment took not only the form of public book burning or fines. Writers were imprisoned or exiled for their views. Voltaire himself was sentenced to the notorious Paris prison, the Bastille, twice and spent much of his adult life in exile from the Paris where he had been born in 1694.
Although Voltaire's father wanted him to study law, the young man preferred literature and began writing at an early age. These brought him international fame as a writer of great style and wit and a reputation as a critic of contemporary society. Already present in these early works were the controversial themes that were to dominate his writing- his criticisms of religion and society, his pleas for freedom and religious tolerance. After his return to France, Voltaire continued his career as a dramatist and poet. His success brought him considerable influence outside literary circles.
Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712 - 1786) was an admirer of his, as was Catherine the Great of Russia (1729 - 1796). Both monarchs, considering themselves "enlightened, " looked to Voltaire for guidance in their studies, since they wished to be known as "philosopher-rulers." As a leading intellectual, Voltaire was courted, if not always heeded. (4). Despite the author's desire for Christian burial, he had long been in conflict with the Church. The Roman Catholic Church was, after the monarchy, the second great power in France.
Voltaire's quarrel with ecclesiastical authority was even stronger than his quarrel with the political authorities. He saw the Church as the defender of superstition, a conservative force standing in the way of rational solutions to problems. He believed that the Church promoted fanaticism and intolerance. Voltaire's career was not aimed merely at destroying intolerance and injustice through satire. His work had a positive force- for the betterment of society, for the spread of knowledge as a way of fighting prejudice and intolerance, whether social, religious, or racial. And Voltaire was not alone in his work.
The 18 th century was not only a period of great absolute monarchs but also the age of the Enlightenment. Social and political ideas established in the seventeenth century continued to play out in the eighteenth. The growth of the mercantile class and the intermingling of the nobility and the middle class led to attempts at creating political equality between persons. One example of this is the growth of brotherhoods or lodges in European society. The Masons, for example, were a secret society in which individuals pledged their support to each other and sought increased equality among differing social classes. (5). When a member was hurt or died, others might pay for his funeral or provide welfare support for his family.
Local hospitals were supported by generous donations of time and money, similar to what the Shriners (also a lodge) do today. A local nobleman with more liberal political leanings might sponsor a Masonic chapter whose members were merchants, businessmen, artists, teachers, and some craftsmen within the local community or region. At meetings they discussed political and social issues of the day in terms of the equality of individuals. In public society, their varying social positions were well fixed and the intermingling of classes somewhat limited. Yet, through the Masons and other such societies, the slow formation of democratic thought developed throughout eighteenth century society.
The opening of the American Declaration of Independence declared that all persons are created equal. This sentiment resonated throughout secret societies in Europe. But unlike America these societies often worked, conservatively, to keep social structures in tact. If a local noble was harsh, greedy in tax collection, or confiscated lands belonging to citizens, those individuals who were adversely affected could take their grievance to their society sponsor who might intervene in their behalf. Oddly, this helped preserve class distinctions by implying the public society should / could not change. American society, by declaring that all individuals were equal rejected the idea of public or political inequality.
France's citizens revolted against King Louis XVI in an effort to institute the same political views. Within another quarter century hardly any European nation escaped internal strife associated with its citizens demands for democratic and parliamentary representation. (4). Perhaps no single example better typifies the optimistic view of enlightenment intellectuals than the effort by Diderot and a cadre of French philosophers to create a single work, an encyclopedia, that contained the essential information in all areas of the sciences and arts. To believe that the world was knowable if people put their rational minds to the effort of conquering ignorance seems admirable today if not a tad naive. But the extent to which reason and logic permeated all aspects of eighteenth century thinking included very serious efforts to collate and classify all aspects of the physical world. Today our encyclopedias are outgrowths of this first effort and while no one would claim them as universal and definitive, they still hope to explain all the important issues and problems of the physical world in a language that all rational minds can understand. 6 All across Europe, such writers and thinkers as Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784) and Jean La Rond d'Alembert (1717 - 1783) in France, and Gott hold Lessing (1729 - 1781) in Germany were speaking out about the need for rational solutions to problems and for freedom of thought and speech.
While the Enlightenment meant different things in each country, certain general beliefs united these apostles of reason who called themselves philosophes. They believed in the need for scientific inquiry free from religious prejudices. The Enlightenment was a secular movement- that is, it opposed the efforts of religion to limit man's inquiries in science, in politics, and in the law. Today, science is rarely limited by the need to justify itself in religious terms. But in the 18 th century, any thought that might call into doubt biblical authority or Church dogma was suspect. The French philosophes (philosophers) sought to free mankind from such confines. (4).
The philosophes were defenders of freedom- freedom of thought, of speech, of religious choice, even of taste. They believed in the power of the human mind. As their general beliefs became more widely accepted, they also turned to specific reforms- legal and prison reform, economic improvement, political liberalization. Today, these goals may seem modest, but in the 18 th century they represented a revolution in thought. Voltaire was regarded by many as the leading philosopher. In Candide, he may be seen at his wittiest.
Candide can be read with as great enjoyment today as it was in the author's own time. Some references may be obscure to contemporary readers, but the humor and the liveliness of Voltaire's style make this story a genuine treat. The abuses he exposes may take different forms today, but religious intolerance and denial of freedom are not problems exclusive to Voltaire's time. And everyone, like Candide, must make his own journey from youth to maturity, from naivete to wisdom.
In Candide, Voltaire has given the reader a portrait of his own age and a timeless story, both entertaining and enlightening. (6). It was the indifferent shrug and callous inertia that this 'optimism' concealed which so angered Voltaire, who found the 'all for the best' approach a patently inadequate response to suffering, to natural disasters - such as the recent earthquakes in Lima and Lisbon - not to mention the questions of illness and man-made war. Moreover, as the rebel whose satiric genius had earned him not only international acclaim, but two stays in the Bastille, flogging and exile, Voltaire knew personally what suffering involved. 7 In Candide he whisks his young hero and friends through a ludicrous variety of tortures, tragedies and reversals of fortune, in the company of Pang loss, a 'metaphysics-theology-cosmos-nosologist' of unflinching optimism. The result is one of the glories of eighteenth-century satire. (5).
Rousseau and Voltaire in France, and Jonathan Swift in England each penned essays and novels that satirized or challenged the intellectual view of the eighteenth century known as the enlightenment, a view that humanity was improving and that through reason and concerted effort, all social ills could be eliminated from society. While all of these authors believed in the power of reason to assist humans in their life struggles, each recognized additional powers that must complement reason in order for individuals to achieve fuller lives spiritually and intellectually. Voltaire believed a mild skepticism toward life's problems was necessary. Rousseau believed the study of nature should balance the aridity of reason while Swift challenged the initial assumption that human nature was good at all.
Bibliography: Feel, M. Cadenus and Vanessa. New York: The Viking Press, 1984. Gournic, T. Philosophical Dictionary, ed. Bester man.
Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986. Hellman, L. Candide: Voltaire's Satire. New York: Avon, 1970. Scott, F. Discourse on Free Thinking.
New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc. , 1993. Tyler, R. A Modest Proposal. Critique. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1986. Voltaire, J. "Candide" in Candide and Other Stories, trans. Roger Pearson. Oxford University Press, 1990. Voltaire, J.
Letters on England, trans. Leonard Tan cock. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.
Free research essays on topics related to: 18 th century, candide voltaire, physical world, eighteenth century, freedom of thought
Research essay sample on 18 Th Century Freedom Of Thought
