VOLTAIRE

Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), better known by his pseudonym Voltaire was one of the main thinkers of the French Enlightenment. He was a writer of prose, poetry and theatre plays, beside philosophical treatises and polemical texts. He was feared and admired for his sharp wit and criticism, especially of the Catholic Church, the monarchy and censorship. Voltaire was born in Paris, from a noble family, and was educated at a Jesuit college. After a brief period in Caen and the Dutch Republic Voltaire settled in Paris to pursue a literary career. Because of his outspokenness and his fight for freedom of thought, combined with the popularity of his work among the aristocracy, Voltaire was repeatedly persecuted by the authorities, and he spent several periods in prison or in exile in England. From this period he remained a strong advocate of freedom of expression and reform of the judicial system, defending the cause of thinkers accused of illicit writings. During his stay in England he was influenced by English literature and political and scientific thought and he wrote several treatises about the English system of governance (Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais, 1734). After his return in Paris he received a large inheritance from his father and settled in Château de Cirey, on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine, where he resumed his intellectual activities, which were directed at the disclosure of Newtonian scientific principles, the writing of history (Le siècle de Louis XV, 1746-1752). In the 1740s Voltaire stayed in the Netherlands and corresponded with king Frederick of Prussia, whom he met in 1742. He spent some time at Frederick’s palace Sanssouci. Measures against his satirical and polemical publications forced him in 1755 to settle in Switzerland and in 1758 in Ferney, where he wrote his famous parody of Leibniz’s philosophical optimism, Candide, ou l’optimisme (1759). On his estate he received internationally reputed intellectuals, such as James Boswell, Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon. In 1764 he published his Dictionnaire philosophique, a collection of short philosophical contemplations. Apart from his historiographies of France under the absolute monarchy, an important historical work by Voltaire is Essai sur les moeurs (1756), with its socio-historical and cultural-historical approach, and its focus on world history without fitting it into a theological/ religious framework. The work promoted a rational and scrupulous study of history, in accordance with the Enlightenment vision of the world. His prose works and plays reveal a critical and satirical mind which reflected but also determined the concerns of his age. Throughout his life he remained fascinated by the phenomenon of religion, criticizing the Catholic Church and its dogmatic, narrow-minded views and repressive institutions and welcoming knowledge about Eastern religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Zoroastrianism, developing a multiform, deist vision of religion. In this he was an influential participant in the Enlightenment debate on religion, redefining the concept of religion to include non-Christian faiths. His vision of Islam underwent a development during his life: Whereas in his play Mahomet (1741) he presented the Prophet Mohammed as a symbol of religious intolerance, later on his view became more appreciative, reflected in Candide’s finding repose in the Ottoman Empire after his many nightmarish peregrinations. Voltaire was very influential already during his life, enjoying the appreciation not only of fellow-writers and intellectuals, such as Diderot, but also of monarchs such as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine II of Russia. His writings continued to be read in the 19th century and have been considered relevant until the present day, both for its literary value and for their satirical and polemic contents. He has remained a symbol of the Enlightenment which shaped Europe’s cultural, intellectual and political history.

The fragments:

Voltaire did not remain aloof from the orientalist vogue which dominated French literature in the 18th century and he used various kinds of exoticism to represent counter-worlds mirroring, and satirizing, French society. He was certainly familiar with the material of the Thousand and one nights whose narrative domain is used as a backdrop to several of his stories and novels. The prologue of Zadig (1747) contains the often cited remark, in a typical satirical tone: ‘C’était du temps òu les Arabes et les Persans commencaient à écrire des Mille et une nuits, des Mille et un jours, etc. Ouloug aimait mieux la lecture de Zadig; mais les sultanes aimaient mieux les Mille et un. “Comment pouvez-vous préférer, leur disait le sage Ouloug, des contes qui sont sans raison, et qui ne signifient rien?- C’est précisément pour cela que nous les aimons, répondaient les sultanes.”’ This determines the tone of the narrative, a picaresque, episodical, novel. In Candide, Voltaire parodied the genre of the romance which had been popular in the 17th century and was refashioned to incorporate the orientalism of the Nights. The work contains a famous passage in which Candide reaches an utopian community after a journey on an underground river, reminiscent of a similar episode in the voyages of Sindbad of the Sea. Several short stories by Voltaire reflect the conventions of the Oriental tale, mainly to illustrate some exemplary morality or aspect of human nature. ‘Le crochteur borgne’ contains motifs such as a rogue confronting a princess, fate, an admonishing formula, a magical ring, an enchanted palace, etc. ‘Le blanc et le noir’ is an Oriental love story after the fashion of the Nights. Other stories, too, exemplify Voltaire’s orientalism, such as ‘Aventure indienne,’ ‘Lettre d’un turc sur les fakirs et sur son ami Babec,’ and ‘La princess de Babylone’.