Voltaire
VOLTAIRE
Nationality: French. Born: Francois-Marie Arquet in Paris, 21 November 1694. Education: College of Louis-le-Grand, Paris, 1704-11 (associated with the Temple set, a group of political thinkers and artists, including Chaulieu, La Fare, and Servien). Career: Writer; inheritance from mother; spent time in jail, including the Bastille (1717); exiled from France at various times throughout his career; gentilhomme ordinaire du roi, 1746-49; many love affairs, including Olympe du Noyer (with whom he tried to elope in 1713), Mme de Bernières, Mme de Rupelmonde, 1772, Mme. Du Châtelet, and the duchess de Saint-Pierre. Died: 30 May 1778.
Publications
Collections
Oeuvres complétes. 1775.
Fiction
Memnon. Historie orientale. 1747.
Zadig; ou, La Destinée. Historie orientale. 1748.
Micromégas. 1752; as Micromegas, 1753.
Candide; ou L'Otimisme. 1759; as Candide, 1759.
Le Monde comme il va. Vision de Babouc. 1759.
Jeannot et Colin. 1764.
L'Ingénu. 1767; as The Pupil of Nature, 1771; as The Sincere Huron, 1786.
La Princesse de Babylone. 1768; as the Princess of Babylon, 1927.
L'Homme aux quarante écus. 1768; as The Man of Forty Crowns, 1768.
Les Lettres d'Amabed. 1769.
Le Taureau blanc, traduit du syriaque. 1774, as The White Bull, 1774.
Historie de Jenni; ou, Le Sage et l'athée. 1775.
Romans et contes. 1978.
Plays
Oedipe. 1719.
Artémire. 1720.
Hérode et Mariamne. 1725.
L'Indiscret. 1725.
Brutus. 1730.
Eriphile. 1732.
Zaïre. 1732.
Les Originaux. 1732.
Les échanges, ou quand est-ce qu' on me marie? comédie en deux actes. 1734.
Adélaïde du Guesclin. 1734.
La Mort de César. 1735.
Alzire; ou, Les Américains. 1736; as Alzira, Or Spanish insult repented: a tragedy, 1775.
L'Enfant prodigue, comédie en vers. 1736.
Zulime. 1740.
Mahomet. 1742; as Mohamet, the Imposter, 1744.
Mérope. 1743.
La Princesse de Navarre, comédie-ballet. 1745.
Le Temple de la gloire. 1745.
La Prude; ou, La Gardeuse de cassette, comédie en vers en cinq actes. 1747.
Sémiramis. 1749.
Nanine, comédie en trois actes en vers. 1749.
Oreste. 1750.
Samson, tragédie lyrique. 1750.
Le Duc de Foix. 1752; as Matilda, 1811.
L'Orphelin de la Chine. 1756; as The Orphan of China, 1756.
Saül. 1755; as Saul, 1820.
La femme qui a raison, comédie en trois actes, en vers. 1759.
Catalina; ou Rome sauvée. 1760; as Rome Preserved, 1760.
Le caffé, ou, L'Ecossaise, comédie par M. Hume traduite en francois. 1760; as The Coffee House, 1760.
Le Droit de Seigneur, comédie en vers. 1764.
Olimpie. 1764.
Octave et le jeune Pompée, ou, Le Triumvirat. 1767.
Les Scythes. 1767.
Charlot; ou, la Tolérance. 1769.
Le baron d'Otrante, opéra bouffe. 1768.
Tancréde, tragédie in vers en cinq actes. 1771.
Les Guèbres; ou, Atrée et Thieste. 1772.
Le Dépositaire, comédie en vers et en cinq actes. 1772.
Les Lois de Minos; ou, Astérie. 1773.
Don Pèdre, roi de Castille. 1775.
Agathocle. 1777.
Irène. 1779.
Le Duc d'Alencon; ou, Les Frères ennemis. 1821.
L'Envieux, comédie en trois actes et en vers. 1834.
Poetry
La Ligue; ou, Henri le Grand: Poème épique. 1732; as Henriade, 1732.
La Temple du Goût. 1733; as The Temple of Taste, 1734.
Le Mondain. 1736.
La Pucelle d'Orléans. 1755; as The Maid of Orleans, 1785-6.
Poème sur désastre de Lisbonne. 1756.
Poème sur la loi naturelle. 1756.
Précis de l'Ecclésiaste en vers. 1759.
La Cantique des cantiques en vers. 1759.
Contes de Guillaume Vadé. 1764.
La Guerre civile de Genève. 1764; as The Civil War of Geneva, 1769.
Epîtres, satires, contes, odes, et pièces fugitives. 1771.
Poèmes, épîtres, et autres poésies. 1777.
Other
Essai sur les guerres civiles de France. 1729; as Essay upon the Civil Wars in France, 1727.
Historie de Charles XII, roi de Suède. 1731; as The History of Charles XII, 1734.
Lettres écrites de Londres sur les Anglais. 1734.
Elèmens de la philosophie de Newton, mis à la portée de tout le monde. 1738.
Annales de l'Empire, depuis Charlamagne. 1753.
Historie de la guerre de mil sept cent quarante et un. 1756; as The History of the War of Seventeen Hundred and Forty-one, 1756.
Le Siècle de Louis XIV. 1753; as The Age of Louis XIV, 1752.
Essai sur l'historie générale et sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations. 1756; as The General History and State of Europe, 1754; as An Essay on Universal History, 1759.
Appel à toutes les nations de l'Europe. 1761.
Traite sur la tolérance. 1764; as A Treatise of Religious Tolerance, 1764.
Dictionairre philosophique, portatif. 1764; as The Philosophical Dictionary for the Pocket, 1765.
La Philosophie de l'historie. 1765.
Collection des letters sur le miracles. 1765.
Le philosophe ignorant. 1766; as The Ignorant Philosopher, 1767.
Les Honnêtetés littéraires. 1767.
Examen important de milord Bolinbroke. 1767.
Lettres sur Rabelais. 1767.
Homélies prononcées à Londres en. 1765.
Le Dîner du comte de Boulainvilliers. 1767.
Les Singularitiés de la nature. 1768.
L'ABC. 1768.
Historie du parlement de Paris. 1769.
Collections d'anciens évangiles; ou Monument du premier siècle du christianisme. 1769.
Dieu et les hommes: oeuvre théologique, mais raisonnable. 1769.
Tout en Dieu. 1769.
Les Adorateurs. 1769.
Fragments sur l'Inde. 1773.
Précis du siècle de Louis XV. 1774; as The Age of Louis XV, 1774.
Commentaire historique sur les oeuvres de l'auteur de la Henriade. 1776.
La Bible enfin expliquée. 1776.
Lettre à l'Académie francaise. 1776.
Dialogue d'Evhémère. 1777.
Commentaire sur l'Esprit des Lois de Montesquieu. 1778.
Prix de la justice et de l'humanité. 1778.
Traité de métaphysique. 1937.
Editor, Extraits des sentiments de Jean Meslier. 1762.
Translator, Socrate by James Thomson. 1759.
Translator, Julius Caesar by Shakespeare. 1764.
Translator, L'Hèraclius espagnol; ou, Dans cette vie tout est vérité et tout mensonge. 1764.
*Bibliography:
A Bibliography of Writings on Voltaire by Mary Margaret Barr, 1929; Voltaire. Bibliographie des ses oeuvres by Georges Bengesco, 1953.
Critical Studies:
Oration on Voltaire, Paris, 1878 by Victor Hugo, 1899; Les Lettres philosophiques by Gustave Lanson, 1909; Voltaire, Pascal and the Human Destiny by Mina Waterman, 1942; Voltaire in Love by Nancy Mitford, 1957; Candide by William Barber, 1960 ; La Propagande philosophique dans les tragédies de Voltaire by Ronald Ridgway, 1961; Philosophy in Literature: Shakespeare, Voltaire, Tolstoy, and Proust by Morris Weitz, 1963;Voltaire by Theodore Besterman, 1969; The Intellectual Development of Voltaire by Ira Wade, 1969; L'Angleterre et Voltaire by André-Michel Rouseeau, 1976; Voltaire by Haydn Mason, 1981; Disabled Powers: A Reading of Voltaire's Contes by R. J. Howells, 1993.
* * *Poet, historian, satirist, playwright, philosopher, pamphleteer, and storyteller, Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) was one of the greatest eighteenth-century French writers, and he remains a dominating figure. Unlike many literary men, however, he was also an adept businessman whose financial dealings enabled him to live on a grand estate employing 60 servants. The estate was near the Swiss border, a location thoughtfully chosen should he need to leave France quickly in case the government took offense at his frequently "subversive" works. He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille, and he spent two years in self-exile in England as a result of a beating by toughs on the order of a powerful nobleman whom he had annoyed with his mockery. He was, like Jean-Paul Sartre in a later age, what the French call engagé, committed to ideas that he expressed through the medium of his writing. All his life he fought against injustice and tyranny, in particular the bigoted and fanatical excesses of established religion. In their place he championed common sense, liberty, and tolerance. While his verse dramas, which enthralled theater audiences at the time, are now largely unperformed and unread, his other works still sparkle with a topical wit, for the human stupidity and cruelty he satirized so mordantly continues.
Alongside the epic poems, dramas, and histories the prolific Voltaire poured out, he also wrote stories designed to illustrate his opinions on various topics. As in all of his writing, the style of the stories is simple, succinct, and typically French in its crystal clarity. He wrote 26 of these stories, which range from the anticlerical "Zadig" to "L'Ingénu" ("The Simple One"), a veiled attack on authoritarian government, and from "Le Taureau blanc" ("The White Bull"), a mockery of biblical tales, to the wry philosophy of Candide. In the stories it is not Voltaire's intention to explore the psychology of his heroes or to depict the interplay of character or even, like Maupassant and O. Henry, to surprise the reader with unexpected twists or endings. His aim is to attack the abuses he saw around him, whether they were religious or political. While he courageously took up, among others, the famous case of Jean Calas, who was unjustly condemned to torture and death by the fanatical religious authorities of the time, in his stories he generalized his assault on the prejudices that brought about such appalling cruelty.
Voltaire believed in God but not in the worldly institutions that claimed to represent him. Ecrasons l'infâme! ("Let us crush the infamous thing!") was his verdict on the organized Catholicism of the age, mired as it was in bigotry and callousness. (Even so, it was a typically mischievous Voltairean touch that whenever he passed a church he was said to raise his hat as a sign of prudent respect for God.) As time went on, the term l'infâme came to stand for all of the evils against which he campaigned. He believed that man should be content to draw his conclusions from what is known and comprehensible to human understanding. Everything else, including first causes, is idle speculation. Such is the theme, for example, of "Zadig" (1747), which takes its title from the name of its young hero. Subtitled "Destiny," it tells how the gifted Zadig wins great success in life. Yet no sooner has he achieved the heights of good fortune than a series of grueling misadventures casts him down to the depths of misery. Why, he demands, should he experience such bad luck? An angel in the person of a hermit explains to him that good can come of evil and that human existence is shaped by an unfathomable Providence. Zadig is restored to prosperity and marries the beautiful queen whom he loves, yet his reaction to the angel's explanation remains. "But… ?" he queries, and his question hangs in the air unresolved.
The device of featuring an unsophisticated young hero and of subjecting him to various misfortunes in order to prove a point was a favorite with Voltaire. He also used it in "L'Ingénu" (1767), in which the central character, born and brought up in Canada by the Hurons, comes to France and is surprised at the apparently paradoxical and contradictory ways of society and of religion. Clapped into the Bastille for supporting the Huguenot victims of religious persecution, he argues the case for tolerance. In order to secure his release, the woman he loves is forced to grant her favors to an influential government minister and later dies of remorse. Thus Voltaire, mingling comedy and tragedy, has an excuse for tilting at both religion and the abuse of political power. An equally guileless hero gives his name to Voltaire's most famous story, Candide (1759), in which the author satirizes contemporary philosophers who preached optimism ("All is for the best in the best possible of worlds"). After surviving many disasters and horrors, Candide eventually finds tranquillity in the country as a small farmer. Everything that happened was, after all, for the best, remarks his complacent tutor and friend Pangloss. "That's well said," replies Candide in one of France's most famous literary epigrams, "but we must cultivate our garden." The implication is that philosophizing is vain and that man should occupy himself with the practical demands of life.
Like Goldsmith's The Citizen of the World (1762), Voltaire's "L'Ingénu" highlights the inconsistencies of society as seen through the eyes of a visiting foreigner. In "Micromégas" (1752) Voltaire combined this approach with an echo of Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). Micromégas is a being 120, 000 feet tall who hails from the planet Sirius. He visits Earth and is surprised to find how petty minded are its insect-sized inhabitants with their senseless wars and stupid squabbles. While he is impressed by their scientific achievements, he is scornful of their claims about the supremacy of man. Humanity is seen as trifling and pretentious and, once its relation to the rest of the universe is taken into account, its ambition as laughable.
The vanity of human wishes, a favorite theme with Voltaire's near contemporary Samuel Johnson, is the subject of "Memnon" (1749). The central character resolves to attain ultimate wisdom by leading a pure existence, renouncing the sinful lures of women, disciplining himself to resist overindulgence in food and wine, living within his income, and envying no man so that he can enjoy ideal relations with his friends. Almost immediately, however, he falls into the arms of a designing female. Her uncle, who is armed to the teeth, surprises them together and is only dissuaded from killing them when Memnon placates him by yielding up all of his wealth. In the attempt to forget the unhappiness he has incurred, Memnon accepts an invitation to dinner with close friends. They drink heavily and disagree over a gamble, whereupon one of them throws a dice box that knocks out Memnon's eye. Stripped of his wealth and now with only one eye, Memnon retires to lick his wounds. Hoping to restore something of his fortune, he relies on a debtor to repay money owed him, but the man goes bankrupt. All of his worthy aspirations have come to naught. In the depths of his distress a heavenly spirit, his "good genius," appears and explains that on the distant planet where the spirit lives people are never deceived by women because they have none, they never overindulge at table because they do not eat, they never have bankruptcies because there is neither gold nor silver, and they never lose an eye because they do not have bodies. In a passing shot at the same target he hit in Candide, Voltaire has Memnon reflect how wrong philosophers are when they conclude that "everything is for the best." He now realizes the impossibility of his pious ambition and sees that he must be content to live as happily as he can with all of his imperfections.
This, generally speaking, is the message delivered by Voltaire's short stories, along with warnings to avoid fanaticism and extremes either of religion or of politics. The philosophies and institutions he satirized may have long since faded into history, but the moral he draws can never lose its topicality. Yes, he says, God exists, and in "L'Histoire de Jenni" ("The Story of Jenni, or the Atheist and the Wise Man"; 1775) he puts forward a powerful argument in God's favor. There is, however, no justification for perpetuating cruelty in God's name or for erecting a system of sterile dogma that persecutes and represses mankind. Neither should governments have the right to stifle the free expression of reasoned opinion with torture and murder. Varying in length from a few pages to the extent of a novella, all of the stories have in common great wit and humor and a graceful style that flows like a stream of pure clear water in which everything is revealed in sharp relief. To this must be added irony, a quality Voltaire handles as if it were a rapier, fleet and quicksilver in use and deadly in effect. His is French prose at its classical best.
—James Harding