##de Or Optimism : A Novel Savant Voltaire's Candide

Voltaire 's Candide is one of the most controversial works of the 18th century, and until today is considered his masterpiece. Voltaire himself is among the disputed writers of his era, as he challenged many given beliefs. Voltaire was a contemporary of the optimism philosophy. At his time, it was widely believed that all is for the best and everything will fall into its perfect place eventually. Voltaire did not agree with this. He was very frank and straightforward, and was concerned with only the truths of this world. He went through many hardships in his life; he was imprisoned in the Bastille, exiled from his country and witnessed many European disasters, including the seven years ' war and the great Lisbon earthquake (Voltaire, 2013, p. vii-x). He was always concerned by the question "is all really for the best, and if so, why are there so many tragedies in the world?". Thus, his works reflect exactly his deep confusion regarding the society 's beliefs in his time (Mason, 1992). There is no definite date as to when Candid was published, however, we do know it was first published as a "translation from the German by Dr. Ralph". Immediately after its publication, it was banned in France and many other European countries, yet it continued to be a bestseller. There are many factors that made Voltaire so popular at the time, and remains a masterpiece to this day. The main reasons being that Voltaire frankly, without any hesitation shook the belief systems of his era to the

    Candide (1991), which is another version of "Voltaire" by French writer Francois-Marie Arouet, is a short but diverse story that tells of a young man's journey for love and the hardships he faces all the while keeping a very strong, positive and philosophical outlook on life. The book starts in an unknown year, hinted sometime around the Renaissance, with a young man named Candide. Candide loves the princess of a Baron and is banished from the land because of it. Wanting so much to be with his love, he starts his travels to find some way that he can be with her. Right from the start Candide falls into trouble. From being forced to join an army, to seeing and loosing his love again,

Voltaire was the author of the novella Candide, also known as "Optimism". The the novella, Voltaire portrays the idea of Optimism as being illogical and absurd. In Candide, Voltaire satirizes the doctrine of Optimism, an idea that was greatly used during the Enlightenment time period by philosophers. In this narrative, Candide is a young man who goes through a series of undertakings and ventures around the the globe where he experiences evil and adversity. Throughout his journeys, Candide maintained the ideas of the teachings of his tutor, Pangloss. Candide and Pangloss believed in the idea that “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds...” (Voltaire 4). This belief is what Voltaire pointed out to be an irrational way of

Throughout Candide Voltaire mercilessly satirizes and mocks many aspects of philosophical optimism. One of the most prevalent examples of this is displayed through Candide’s teacher, Pangloss. Acting as a stand-in for Leibniz in the novel, Voltaire portrays him as both ignorant and arrogant, initially introducing him as Candide’s “metaphysico-theologo-cosmoniogoly”(Voltaire 15) teacher. Pangloss’s egocentric personality

Within the hundred or so pages of Voltaire’s Candide resides proof of all four values of the Enlightenment: hope, progress, natural law, and reason. Being a man of the enlightenment, it makes sense for Voltaire’s novel to include these values. Using ironic humor and satire, Voltaire managed to say what he needed to say without being directly responsible for having said it. As Candide reads like an adventure story, there is a lot of dialogue between characters. Through these conversations and stories, Voltaire’s Candide shows support for the enlightenment principle of reason (critical, rational thought) with regards to organized religion but shows very little support for the enlightenment principle of progress (change for the better) with regards to female tropes and sexism.

After reading this book, I have concluded that this has to be within the top five of my favorite books I’ve read. “Why?” you may ask. Well this book does an excellent job with the author targeting his ideas around the significant approach as to what he perceives to be the ills of this world, religious and philosophical ideas of the seventeenth-century, and how an individual should navigate them. Essentially, we look at this book and think of one of the main ideas. A main idea which can be represented by a single word, ‘optimism’. When it comes to this book, one must look at the term ‘optimism’ in a philosophical way, which ties to Leibniz idea that this world is the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire disagrees with this idea immensely, and

The French satire, Candide written by Voltaire, was a response to philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The publication of Candide, in 1759, was also inspired by the Seven Years War and the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. The Lisbon Earthquake specifically, influenced the way the generation viewed the idea of optimism. Coining the concept “all is for the best in this all of best possible worlds." Voltaire openly rejected this idea, believing if this were the best of all possible worlds, it should be better. Voltaire uses the earthquake in Candide, satirically describing it as a terrible disaster in the best of all possible worlds. In the novel, Voltaire portrays the foolishness of optimism. In the end of the novel Candide purchases Cunegonde’s freedom. Candide is disappointed when he sees Cunegonde has become ugly, but follows through on his promise and marries her anyway. Although Candide keeps an optimistic attitude throughout the novel, he never succeeds in his pursuit of pleasure, and is never truly content. Through Candide’s personal journey, and by Voltaire’s deliverance and development of new characters, the idea that human beings will never be satisfied in their endeavor for happiness is portrayed. Therefore, the concept that “all is for the best in this all of best possible worlds” is too simplistic to fully describe the imperfections in the world and is a foolish representation of evil.

Francios- Marie Arouet or better known by his penname, Voltaire was a successful author in the Enlightenment Era in France. The Enlightenment Era was a cultural movement where many intellectuals in Europe began to emphasize the importance of reason and individualism. Voltaire was considered one of the most influential authors of those times, because of his many plays and books. Voltaire was “known as a defender of religious freedom, free trade, civil liberties, and social reform.

Candide (1759) is a satirical bildungsroman written by French philosopher and writer Voltaire. The novel reflects the general doctrines of individualism, religion, and liberty which encapsulate the literary movement in the Age of Enlightenment. This is exemplified by the philosophical journey of the protagonist Candide: being a victim to harsh realities and encountering different utopia’s. In this novel, Voltaire draws upon the ethics of German philosopher Leibniz: “Le meilleur des mondes possibles” – using it as the philosophy of the sub-plot character Pangloss, whom Voltaire openly mocks. There are three main locations which I will expand upon, influenced by happiness: Candide’s initial home in the story, Thunder-ten-tronckh– the Baron’s

Through these themes, Voltaire shows how the world is so corrupt to be “the best of all possible worlds”, and he’s able to challenge these optimistic beliefs in a satirically way by having his characters undergo traumatic hardships and misery that serve no purpose in making the world a better place and only makes them suffer. Although all the characters in Candide are

Through the experiences of the protagonist Candide, Voltaire depicts his philosophical beliefs in the book titled Candide. Voltaire rejects both the optimistic philosophy that suggests “all is for the best…[because] we live in the best of all possible worlds” and the pessimistic philosophy that suggests that there is “little virtue and little happiness in the world…[because] men were created by the forces of evil and not by the forces of good.” Instead of believing in these two radical philosophies, Voltaire believes that the world can find morality through reason, and he expresses his views through his descriptions of both Pangloss’s and Martin’s philosophies as well as the ideal land of Eldorado.

Throughout the story, Voltaire uses optimisms folly as his main satirical target. The characters Candide and his philosophy professor Pangloss are devoted followers of the Leibnizian teachings of optimism. They both maintain that, “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds”. (CITE). This idea is a simplified version of many philosophies from a number of Enlightenment philosophers, most notably Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. To many of these thinkers, the presence of any evil in the world is a sign that God is not entirely good, or is not at all powerful. But, the idea of an imperfect God is irrational. These philosophers established that since God is perfect, the world he created must also be perfect, and that those who perceive the worlds imperfections simply to do not understand Gods grand plan. Since Voltaire doesn’t accept the idea of a perfect

Candide was written during first contact between the western and eastern hemispheres, the transformation to Industrialization and secularism, and social and educational reform throughout Europe. What became to be known as the Enlightenment era, drove Voltaire into writing against institutions and religions that opposed the enlightenment. Through Voltaire’s satire in Candide, Candide question’s his framing of the natural world that is due in large by Pangloss, his mentor on Optimistic Philosophy. Pangloss had mentored Candide, in Westphalia in the castle of the Baron of

The first item I will be discussing is Candide which is a satire written by the philosopher François Marie Arouet who is known by his pseudonym Voltaire. Candide main characters adapt the idea that everything happens for the best, no matter how bad it is. It talks about a man who falls in love with a woman and after that he goes through a lot of hardships as he travels the world with his many companions. The novelattacks the church through irony and satire, it mentions how the church punishes people for having heretical ideas, which contradicts the aims of the Enlightenment as the latter supports explaining the world through science in a way that separates the ideas from those mentions in the Bible. The novel includes a character named

“Candide” is a French satire written smack dab in the middle of the eighteenth century during the enlightenment era. The story is written by a dark and gloomy gentleman named Voltaire, who seems to be only intrigued by the worst things possible in the world. Especially for his main character and protagonist, Candide. For some, this point of view may be a breathtaking and an appropriate outlook for the world we live in. Despite this being true for many situations on planet Earth, this is a very cynical perspective of the world. For this reason, Voltaire wrote “Candide”, which in summary sounds like a love story, as a tale of a man who chases around a beautiful girl, hops through obstacles, and arrives ultimately at, a horrendous finale almost every time. Essentially, “Candide” can best be described as a story in which the most atrocious acts of human violence occur such as: murder, rape, and torture, with love for a woman or self-pride on behalf of Candide, sprinkled on top. The latter two are up for debate among readers, but that is the jest of the story. Voltaire wrote this story during a period of his life, which more than likely can be described as him being lost in the captivity of negativity. Even with this being the probable cause of this story, the central focus underneath the dialogue, is the morality of humans. Although the previous sentence is just an opinion, the proof comes in the form of three specific items in the story: Pangloss, Martian, and the actions of