Francois-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694-1778)

Voltaire and Bernstein Beg to Differ: “Ecrasez l'Enfame!”

Be familiar with or have some idea about the following philosophers and thinkers of the Enlightenment, all of whom influenced Voltaire and his contemporaries:

1) Rene Descartes (1596-1650) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes;

2) John Locke (1632-1704) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke;

3) Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz

4) David Hume (1711-76) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

5) Isaac Newton ( 1643-1727) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton.

Read the Redman’s introduction to Voltaire in our Penguin text and note the visual and other information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire. As you explore the website, be sure you know how these individuals affected Voltaire’s work: Marquise du Châtelet, Frederick the Great, and Isaac Newton.

Read “The Lisbon Earthquake” (550) and Preface (556). The Lisbon earthquake, occurring November 1, 1755, was an incredible tragedy, killing as many as 40,000 people, many of whom were attending church on the Sunday morning on which the quake happened. The event affected the belief of many, including Voltaire who had settled into deism and eventually into skepticism. One of the ideas he suggests concerns the nature of evil in a world created by a benevolent and involved deity. What does Leibniz’s famous argument, “Whatever is, is right” suggest about such a god? In the poem, Voltaire addresses Leibnizian philosophy. How so? How does the Great Chain of Being fit into Leibniz’s ideas? How does Voltaire question St. Augustine’s idea: “Sub Deo justo nemo miser nisi mereatur”? What are some of Voltaire’s arguments against such a personalistic god?

Read Candide (229-328) and note the satirical conventions that Voltaire employs in this his most famous work:

1) use of "ingénue" persona (note Candide's name);

2) cultural cross-fire (contrasting societies—El Dorado vs. French society, for example—to point out the flaws of one’s own government and society);

3) ironic reversal (assuming a pose or situation the opposite from the satirist's real views, for example Voltaire's portrayal of war as glorious);

4) satiric norm (the true center of intelligence in the satire, someone whose views are close to the author's);

5) exaggeration;

6) travel frame.

As you read, mark in your text those specific points of social satire that you find. What area of society receives Voltaire’s most vitriolic satiric barbs; in other words, what appears to be at the heart of most social ills, as far as Voltaire is concerned? Describe the philosophy of Candide’s venerable teacher, Dr. Pangloss. At what point in the narrative does Candide begin seriously to question or turn away from Dr. Pangloss's philosophy of optimism? As the motley group of questers search for the “philosopher’s stone,” the secret to happiness, what types of people try to give them insights? Is Martin, the Manichean, a “center of intelligence” for Voltaire (in other words, do you think Martin is speaking for Voltaire)? What is a Manichean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism)? How do Martin and Dr. Pangloss function in terms of a philosophic dialectic (philosophic antitheses) for Voltaire? When all is said and done, do Candide and his friends learn much from these people? Voltaire's final thesis or message in this scurrilous and scandalous piece of writing is that we “cultivate our gardens”; what does he mean by this? Is this the “philosopher’s stone”? Is this enough?

Read Zadig (329-412), published in 1747, more than a decade before Candide (1759). This satire, which largely takes place in Babylon, is a trial-run for Candide but different in many ways. Zadig is less an innocent ingénue (Candide) than a wise, thoughtful, clear-thinking nobleman, attempting to live right and rule justly, by both his reason and good sense. However, just as Candide, Zadig is buffeted about rather severely by life’s unpleasant circumstances. What are some of the more despicable hardships that befall Zadig? How does Voltaire satirize the legal system in the story? What kind of judge is Zadig? Hardly a benevolent god operating in the best of all possible worlds, the force propelling the Universe (and Zadig on his circuitous journey) is characterized how? When Zadig returns to Babylon at the end of the story, he finds that the Grand Magus has posed two riddles for the sages to solve. Zadig proceeds to posit his answers to the riddles? What are they? The story ends in a fairly hopeful fashion, as Zadig recalls that “even the grain of sand . . . [becomes] a diamond” (411). Explain the metaphor in relation to the story. How specifically is the satire Zadig different from Candide, and what does this difference reveal about the direction of Voltaire’s thought during the decade that followed the writing of Zadig?

Read selections from the Philosophical Dictionary: “Love” (155-158), “Religion” (187-195), “Theist” (207-208).

Read selections from Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais: “The English Constitution” (516), “Inoculation” (524), “Locke (536).

Read these letters: “To the Minister” (467), “To J. J. Rousseau” (493-96), “To Frederick the Great” (447), “To Frederick the Great” (459).

VOLTAIRE, FRANCOIS-MARIE AROUET (1694-1778)

"French Philosopher and Satirist, 'Gadfly" to the State"

Discussion: To understand Voltaire, one must understand the philosophic environment of his intellectual coming of age. Who were some of the great writers to become part of the philosophic landscape of the day?

1. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was the father of modern philosophy and one of the early rationalists (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes). His Discourse on Method introduced the world to Cartesian philosophy with its metaphysical foundation expressed in the idea, "Cogito; ergo sum." In this phrase, we find the essence of rationalism and the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

2. John Locke (1632-1704) was an English empiricist whose work dealt with the subject of human cognition (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke). In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke projected the idea that all knowledge is derived from experience, and our minds process and learn like writing on a "blank slate" (tabula raza): any experience or outside stimuli functions as "the writing" on the "slate." Locke did not believe in any type of "innate" ideas or "a priori" truth or knowledge (a cornerstone of Romantic philosophy, not the Enlightenment).

4. David Hume (1711-76) a Scottish philosopher who, under the influence of Locke (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume) and Hobbes (rational materialism), believed that only through skepticism might one arrive at truth. In his Treatise on Human Nature Hume propounds the idea that mind is nothing but a series of sensations and thus no knowledge is certain.

5. Jean Jacque Rousseau (1712-78) was, next to Leibnitz, the most "anti-rational" of all the philosophers (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau). Rousseau believed that humankind was innately good (noble savage) and the institutions of a corrupt society actually mold us to become evil. Rousseau's Social Contract and Emile would become the inspiration for Romanticism.

6. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German philosopher and mathematician who was the antithesis of Hume (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz). For Leibniz and his philosophy of optimism, this was the best of all possible worlds, where each aspect of creation has its place, even evil. For every cause there is a legitimate and positive effect; without evil there would be no free will or choice—God invented sin ( taking the apple from the tree of knowledge) in order for ultimate good to proceed from our "fallen" or “post-lapsarian” state. The tragedies and catastrophes of our lives are there for the purpose and plan of an essentially benevolent deity.

Into this philosophic landscape came Francois-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), who began as an optimist and ended if not a pessimist at least a mildly disgruntled skeptic (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire) . Like Alexander Pope he was physically weak, yet he lived to be 83. He became the neoclassical symbol for “revolt against intolerance, superstition and stupidity.” An acerbic wit, keenly intelligent, and relentlessly ambitious, Voltaire was less an inventor of new ideas than a sponge-like assimilator of ideas already permeating the intellectual landscape of his day. Though Voltaire gave us some of the most beautiful, lucid French prose ever written, he could be mean as a snake with that prose when pushed. When Rousseau, his bitter enemy, sent him a copy of his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Voltaire replied: "I have received, sir, your new book against the human race, and thank you for it . . . No one has ever used so much intelligence to make us out such stupid animals" (493). Later when someone told Voltaire that Rousseau had died, he replied, "If Rousseau is dead, it is one scoundrel less."

As a young man, Voltaire was a follower of Leibnitzian philosophy (though he would later become an ardent admirer of Newton, Leibnitz’s contemporary and rival) but experience taught him this was far from being the "best of all possible worlds.” How did Voltaire perceive and experience the world around him?

1. He saw himself reviled by powerful men, imprisoned twice in the Bastille, and banished from France, condemned by the clergy, and at times the crown. The Duke of Rohan, thought Voltaire arrogant, a menace to the state, and, accompanied by a group of toughs, attacked Voltaire in an alley and beat him mercilessly! Not the whimpering sort, Voltaire published this public retort from the Bastille, April 1726:

“M. de Voltaire ventures humbly to point out that an attempt has been made to assassinate him by the brace Chevalier de Rohan (assisted by six cutthroats, behind whom the Chevalier courageously placed himself); and that ever since, M. de Voltaire has tried to repair, not his own honor, but that of the Chevalier—which has proved too difficult.” (467)

As result of Voltaire's verbal defense, a lettre de cachet was issued (secret warrant that would allow the government to incarcerate without a trial), and he fled to England, where he had the good fortune to become friends with Alexander Pope and his illustrious circle of luminaries and where he began his study England’s constitutional monarchy, which he thought highly superior to the French absolute monarchy. His Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais resulted from the three-year sojourn in England.

2. He saw the French beaten in senseless, stupid wars (the Seven Years' War or French and Indian War, 1756-63, part of the larger War of Austrian Succession, 1740-63).

3. He saw his friends, the Encyclopedists, his intellectual compatriots, suppressed by a government motivated by a powerful and narrow-minded Church and overbearing aristocracy—the Two Estates (Church and Aristocracy) that were smothering the French people! When he wrote “Ecrasez l’infame!” this was his reference.

4. And he saw a less than benevolent God that seemed to sanction the catastrophes and tragedies of the world, the coup de grace being the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, killing some 50,000 people on All Saints Day as they worshipped in the crowded churches—a bitter irony to Voltaire!! He reviled organized religion, preferring to be a deist—noting famously: “Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer!”

During his banishment in England, he always immensely popular with the French “people,” if not the French establishment. It was the ideas of the English Enlightenment (of Locke, Newton, Hobbes, and Hume) that inspired his political thought and filled the pages of Philosophical Letters on the English, a book burned by French authorities. Another immensely important influence on Voltaire was that of a young 26-year-old aristocrat, *Marquise du Chatelet, Gabrielle Émilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, with whom he fell in love and whose husband not only tolerated Voltaire but immensely admired him. Voltaire was invited to stay at the Marquise’s estate, Chateau de Cirey on the border of Champagne and Lorraine, after his return from England and second banishment from Paris in 1732. Their relationship lasted 15 years; and after the passion waned, their friendship continued until the Marquise’s death in 1749 in childbirth at age 40, after an affair with the charming rake and poet Jean François de Saint-Lambert. Voltaire said of du Châtelet on her death that she was "a great man whose only fault was being a woman” (459). Together they studied, collected books, wrote and conducted scientific experiments concerning optics, pursued the study of Newton, studied history, philosophy and metaphysics. With the Marquise, Voltaire refined his ideas about deism and the Bible. After her death, Voltaire left France for a time to work and study with Frederick the Great, who had long admired the philosopher and satirist (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II_of_Prussia). Frederick gave Voltaire a salary of 20,000 francs a year—though Voltaire would eventually alienate Frederick when he got into an argument with the president of the Berlin Academy of Science (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Adolph-von-Menzel-Tafelrunde.jpg). Voltaire’s wicked tongue made for him a plethora of enemies and rekindled the establishment fires in France against him. Nonetheless, today Voltaire is regarded as one of the chief fathers of the French Revolution.

Finally, in 1758, the year Candide was written, after a life filled with intrigue, adventure, and controversy, Voltaire settled at Ferney, on the French-Swiss border; there he spent his the rest of his life "cultivating his garden"—that is, working feverishly to expose the shams of government, philosophy, and religion, sewing his seeds of revolution in the fertile soil of satire, his spade the “mighty pen”! Voltaire produced more than 50 volumes of writing--drama, poetry, historical and polemical works, even a great epic poem; his best work, however, was his satire; and all he wrote was aimed, in some degree or other, toward one end: "Ecrasez l'enfame!" (Crush infamy!) It is important to add that, like many great satirists, his life was filled with contradictions. For example, he retired to Ferney a millionaire, having made some very successful business deals, including a partnership with two brothers who contracted to supply the French army with food and munitions (a sort of latter day Haliburton).

Discussion of CANDIDE, 1758 (229)

¨Written with incredible energy, in a quick-paced and modern prose style, Candide was produced in just 3 days in a rage over the stupidity (from Voltaire’s point of view) of Leibniz and the optimists, who had become the philosophic "darlings" of French intelligentsia. Because Candide is satire, its plot is outlandish and its characterization shallow and one-dimensional. What advantage might there be in such superficial characterization?

Note the major satiric techniques in Candide:

1) use of "ingénue" persona (note Candide's name);

2) cultural cross-fire (contrasting societies—El Dorado vs. French society, for example—to point out the flaws of one’s own government and society);

3) ironic reversal (assuming a pose or situation the opposite from the satirist's real views, for example Voltaire's portrayal of war as glorious);

7) Exaggeration;

travel frame;

8) satiric norm (the true center of intelligence in the satire, someone whose views are close to the author's).

What character might provide the satiric norm in the book?

What specifically does Voltaire satirize?

1. Adventure stories: This, on the most fundamental level (as is Gulliver's Travels), is burlesque of travel literature and exotic romances, all the rage in Europe at this time.

2. Women: All of the women in the book are "raped, pillaged and plundered," and most take full advantage of their condition as "whores" and "prostitutes" to get whatever they can from the ravager they have to content with at the moment. The two women pursued by ravaging monkeys (268), whom Candide "saves," are only made angry by his chivalry and Candide is almost cooked and served for dinner! Is Voltaire saying that all women are whores at heart and shamelessly ignorant and self-serving? Is Voltaire a misogynist? Note Paguette's speech on 304-05; do you discern here some sympathy on Voltaire's part for women?

3. Religion: What was the Inquisition? What does Voltaire have to say about the Auto Da Fe? (242) Note the contrast that El Dorado provides with Candide's French society (276).

4. Rousseau and the Romantics : (546)

5. War: The satire here is directed specifically against the Seven Years War, in which the French were defeated by the English and Prussians and lost their fortifications along the Mississippi and eventually their influence in America (Abares = French and the Bulgars = Prussians, 234)

6. Critics: Voltaire's disdain for critics is enshrined in the character of Pococurante (309), the Venetian nobleman who seems to have everything but is made happy by nothing, who likes neither the ancients nor the moderns (note Swift's "Battle of the Books"), and who is generally disgruntled with everything.

7. The institution of Slavery, law, French/English national characteristics, and specific personal enemies are all attacked in Candide. Voltaire spares no one or nothing. (Note ch. 22-- M. Gauchat and Archdeacon Trublet, specific contemporaries whom Voltaire hated.)

8. Leibnitzian philosophy and the Optimists: (522) Candide's definition of an optimist changes as the story progresses, and his trust in Dr. Pangloss’s thesis seriously begins to wane at what point in the tale? (554)

9. Who provides a contrast to the Optimist point of view and serves as representative of the skeptic? Note Martin's skepticism when Candide asks him, "To what end was the world formed?" Martin replies, "To make us mad!"(287-90) Does Martin serve as the satiric norm in the story? Is he Voltaire's real "center of intelligence"? Who is the only character who shows real growth in the story?

Candide eventually pulls away from Dr. Pangloss (optimism) yet is never fully won by Martin’s pessimism. So what idea do you conclude is the philosophic norm for Voltaire—Skepticism, Optimism, or something closer to Aristotle's philosophy of a Golden Mean?

10. What is the final result of Candide's search for the meaning of life, the proverbial “philosopher’s stone”—and thus the meaning of the book?

In an 1759 letter, Voltaire wrote to a friend:

"I have read a great deal; I have found nothing but uncertainties, lies, fanaticisms, and I am just about in the same uncertainty concerning our existence, as I was when I was a suckling babe; I much prefer to plant, to sow, to build, . . . and above all to be free."

Happiness, then, one concludes after following the various characters on their quest for the meaning of life, is a nebulous thing. At best, life is merely boredom (Chekhov); at worst, shear hell (Doestoveski)! Happiness isn't necessarily found within or without or something one can achieve through direct pursuit; chances are, search as we may, it will only be experienced now and again indirectly. The most we can hope for, then, is to fill up our lives with some meaningful work (Tolstoi and Chekhov), to be useful, and to find some tangible way to justify an existence that often appears essentially meaningless (Sartre's existentialism)! This idea is neither optimism nor pessimism! It is merely “doing the best we can.” (Note final selection from Bernstein's Candide).

Zadig (1714)

Zadig (329-412) was published in 1747, more than a decade before Candide (1759). This satire, which largely takes place in Babylon, is a trial-run for Candide, both alike and different from its successor. Zadig is less an innocent ingénue (Candide) than a wise, thoughtful, clear-thinking, and nobleman attempting to live right and rule justly, by both his reason and good sense. However, just as Candide, Zadig is buffeted about rather severely by life’s unpleasant circumstances. What are some of the more despicable events in the story? (362) How does Voltaire satirize the legal system in the story? What kind of a judge is Zadig? (346-348) Where does Voltaire pick up much of his political satire—see “The Dance” at 347 and the “blue eye” controversy on 380. What does Voltaire, the deist, think about philosophy and religion in this work a decade before Candide? (338, 369-70) How would you describe the force propelling the Universe and Zadig on his circuitous journey? (Serendipity, 342, and Happenstance, 397)

When Zadig returns to Babylon at the end of the story, he finds that the Grand Magus has posed two riddles for the sages to solve. Zadig proceeds to posit what answers to the riddles? (408-09) The story ends in a fairly hopeful fashion, as Zadig recalls that “even the grain of sand . . . [becomes] a diamond” (411), suggestion an optimistic hopefulness. How specifically is Zadig different from the infamous Candide (less jaded, less the hard-core skeptic, more hopeful, with a hero wise and thoughtful from the beginning); and what does the comparison reveal about Voltaire’s development and growth as a writer and thinker? What does Voltaire gain by substituting an innocent for the wise and just Zadig? (The creation of Candide as young ingénue is an ingenious trick to allow more fun and more mileage with the intellectual crossfire.) Do you agree: The more Voltaire lives in the world, the more he reads and studies, the more he experiences, the more jaded and skeptical he becomes?