Voltaire

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Voltaire (1694–1778) French philosopher, historian, playwright, and poet, b. François Marie Arouet. He is the outstanding figure of the French Enlightenment. Voltaire spent much of his life combating intolerance and injustice, and attacking institutions such as the Church. While in the Bastille (1717), he wrote his first tragedy Oedipe (1718). In 1726, Voltaire was beaten and returned to the Bastille for insulting a nobleman. While in exile in England (1726–29), he was strongly influenced by John Locke and Isaac Newton and wrote a classic biography of Charles XII of Sweden. Back in France, Voltaire wrote several tragedies and the eulogistic Philosophical Letters (1734), which provoked official censure. Voltaire corresponded for many years with Frederick II (the Great) and contributed to Diderot's Encyclopédie. His best-known work, the philosophical romance Candide (1759), published anonymously. Other works that express his philosophy of rationalism include Jeannot et Colin (1764), and Essay on Morals (1756). The Dictionnaire philosophique (1764) is a collection of his thoughts on contemporary matters.

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