Transcript Section 18: The Enlightenment in Europe

Section 18: The Enlightenment in
Europe
Reference Vol. D. (1650-1800)
Major Chapter Points
1. In the midst of the massive—and often
cataclysmic—social changes that violently reshaped
Europe during the eighteenth century, philosophers
and other thinkers championed reason and the power
of the human mind, contributing to the somewhat
misleading appellation of this pre-revolutionary
period as an "Age of Enlightenment."
2. Because literature was produced by a small cultural
elite, it tended to address limited audiences of the
authors' social peers, who would not necessarily
notice the class- and race-specific values that served
as a basis for proper conduct and actions outlined in
poems, novels, and belles lettres.
belles lettres?
• Did you want to know what that was? I sure
did. According to the Encyclopedia
Britannica it describes “literature that is an
end in itself and is not practical or purely
informative. The term can refer generally to
poetry, fiction, drama, etc., or more
specifically to light, entertaining, sophisticated
literature. It is also often used to refer to
literary studies, particularly essays. The word
is French and literally means “beautiful
letters.”
3. The notion of a permanent, divinely ordained,
natural order offered comfort to those aware of the
flaws in the actual social order.
4. Reliance on convention as a mode of social and
literary control expresses the constant efforts to
achieve an ever-elusive stability in the eighteenth
century.
5. By exercising their right to criticize their fellow men
and women, satirists evoked a rhetorical ascendancy
that was obtained by an implicit alliance with literary
and moral tradition.
6. Though she outwardly declared her humility and
religious subordination, Sor (Sister) Juana InÈs de
la Cruz managed to advance claims for women's
rights in a more profound and far-reaching way than
anyone had achieved in the past.
Sor (Sister) Juana Inés de la Cruz
• 1651-1695 Her original
name Juana Ramírez de
Asbaje poet, dramatist,
scholar, and nun, an
outstanding writer of the
Latin American colonial
period and of the
Hispanic Baroque. Lived
in Mexico City.
A small excerpt from “Reply to Sor
Philothea:”
Oh, how much harm would be avoided in
our country if older women were as learned
as Laeta and knew how to teach in the way
Saint Paul and my Father Saint Jerome
direct! Instead of which, if fathers wish to
educate their daughters beyond what is
customary, for want of trained older women
and on account of the extreme negligence
which has become women's sad lit, since
well-educated older women are unavailable,
they are obliged to bring in men teachers to
give instruction in reading, writing, and
arithmetic, playing musical instruments, and
other skills. No little harm is done by this,
as we witness every day in the pitiful
examples of ill-assorted unions; from the
ease of contact and the close company kept
over a period of time, there easily comes
about something not thought possible. As a
result of this, many fathers prefer leaving
their daughters in a barbaric, uncivilized
state to exposing them to an evident danger
such as familiarity with men breeds. All of
which would be eliminated if there were
older women of learning, as Saint Paul
desires, and instruction were passed down
from one group to another, as in the case
with needlework and other traditional
activities.
Silly, you men--so very adept
at wrongly faulting womankind,
not seeing you're alone to blame
for faults you plant in woman's mind.
After you've won by urgent plea
the right to tarnish her good name,
you still expect her to behave-you, that coaxed her into shame.
You batter her resistance down
and then, all righteousness, proclaim
that feminine frivolity,
not your persistence, is to blame.
When it comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.
Presumptuous beyond belief,
you'd have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you're courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.
For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so queer
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it's not clear?
On the
Specifics
IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the
age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch
of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we
had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we
were all going direct the other way
In the midst of the massive—and often
cataclysmic—social changes that violently
reshaped Europe during the eighteenth
century, philosophers and other thinkers
championed reason and the power of the
human mind,
• This emphasis contributing to the somewhat misleading
appellation of this pre-revolutionary period as an "Age
of Enlightenment“ ALSO “The Age of Reason.”
• New commerce permitted the accumulation of new
wealth, which threatened the established hierarchies of
social order, particularly the monarchies, when the
newly wealthy demanded political power.
• Similarly, the schisms within the Christian Church
gave witness to the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, which had granted toleration of
Protestants in France, as well as to rebellions
around the succession to the throne in England.
• Religious differences carried over into social and
political differences, so that division within
European powers, especially France and England,
were of greater significance than divisions
between them.
• The Age of Enlightenment also watched as the
American and French revolutions changed the
ethos and tenor of European life.
Because literature was produced by a small
cultural elite, it tended to address limited
audiences of the authors' social peers, who
would not necessarily notice the class- and
race-specific values that served as a basis for
proper conduct and actions outlined in poems,
novels, and belles lettres.
Literally "beautiful letters" in French, the term
belles lettres aptly describes works of graphic design
in which typography plays an aesthetic role, elevating
print communication to the realm of art
• Both French and English society were
strictly hierarchical.
• For the upper classes, public life mattered more
than private life.
– In France, women controlled the intellectual life of
literary salons.
– In England, women were allowed no such commanding
positions.
• Beginning around 1660, authors such as MoliËre,
Swift, Pope, Fielding and Voltaire called attention
to the deceptions of well-defined codes of
behavior, though they did not go so far as to
consider whether the codes themselves might be at
fault.
• Literary "expressiveness" was linked to shared
opinions rather than to the eccentricities of
individual will.
The notion of a permanent, divinely
ordained, natural order offered comfort
to those aware of the flaws in the actual
social order
• Nature was often set against society as a measure of
reality—nature in the double sense of an inherent
order of things and of human nature.
• As a consequence, thinkers tended to emphasize
notions of a common humanity at the expense of
considering cultural divergenceses.
• Genuine conviction in the truth of universality
enabled standards for excellence to appear as though
they were not culturally specific.
Reliance on convention as a mode of
social and literary control expresses
the constant efforts to achieve an everelusive stability in the eighteenth
century.
• As with eighteenth-century literature, society
operated on the basis of established codes and
conventions.
• Guides to manners were wildly popular, based on the
assumption that rigorous commitment to decorum
would help to preserve society's "important" values,
emphasizing a continuation from past to present.
• Literary conventions followed the classical
assumption that literature existed both to
delight and instruct the reader. Each literary
genre developed its own means of achieving
this goal.
• Nonetheless, the Ancients and the Moderns
debated the value of permanence versus the
value of change.
By exercising their right to criticize
their fellow men and women, satirists
evoked a rhetorical ascendancy that
was obtained by an implicit alliance
with literary and moral tradition.
• To different degrees and on different occasions,
MoliËre, Pope, Swift, Fielding and Voltaire wrote in
the satirical mode
• The popularity of satire suggests another version of
the conflict between reason and passion, the forces of
stability and instability.
• By contrast, Racine adapted the classical form of the
tragedy to new ends.
Henry Fielding's
Preface to Joseph Andrews
• Joseph Andrews was Fielding’s first try at an
extended comic narrative.
• In it he defines what genre he is working in.
– A Comic-Romance – a comic epic poem in prose.
• He also lays out what he believes is the purpose of
comedy (or what we would call satire).
– Affectation is the only true source of comedy.
http://nzr.mvnu.edu/faculty/trearick/english/rearick/World_Lit_II/Fi
elding's%20Preface%20to%20Joseph%20Andrews.ppt
Molière
Jean Baptiste Poquelin
Tartuffe
or
The Imposter
Jean Baptiste Poquelin
• ( 1622-1673)
• Molière was a pseudonym
• Now thought of as one of the greatest of
all French writers.
• Added to the comic tradition the idea
based on a double vision of normal and
abnormal seen in relation to each other-the comedy of the true opposed to the
specious, the intelligent seen alongside
the pedantic.
• His mother died when he was 10 years old.
• His father, one of the appointed furnishers of the
royal household.
• His father gave him a good education at the Collège
de Clermont:
– (the school that, as the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, was
to train so many brilliant Frenchmen, including
Voltaire).
• Although his father clearly intended him to take over
his royal appointment, the young man renounced it in
1643.
• Apparently Moliere determined to break with
tradition and seek a living on the stage.
Tartuffe or The Imposter
Dramatic Persona:
Orgon, husband to Elmire.
Damis, his son.
Valère, Mariane’S lover.
Cléante, Orgon’s brother-in-law.
Tartuffe.
M. Loyal, a tipstaff.
A Police Officer.
Elmire, Orgon’s wife.
Madame Pernelle, Orgon’s
mother.
Mariane, Orgon’s daughter.
Dorine, her maid.
Flipote, Madame Pernelle’s
servant.
WHY READ TARTUFFE?
Tartuffe is a delightful play
from France's Golden Age.
Not only is Tartuffe a great
classic, it is fun to read or to
see (there are excellent films
of Tartuffe available; it is
also performed fairly often).
The play deals with family
troubles, struggles between the
generations, thwarted young
love, reasonable folks who are
ignored, pompous fools who
cause great trouble, and a truly
evil villain, the hypocrite,
Tartuffe.
Tartuffe also offers a solid basis
for comparison and contrast with
later works you will be reading,
including Candide (varieties of
fools), Faust (two sorts of evil
leaders), and The Doll’s House
(women's conditions and
behavior).
Back to Fielding’s View of the
True Source of the Comic
• Affectation—the putting on of a false
persona. Fielding says that this affectation
is motivated either by
– Pride: here is the flaw Molier shows in Orgon
who while he claims that he is a devout
Christian pursues in ignorance a self centered
agenda
– Hypocrisy: Tartuffe illustrates this. He too puts
on a Christian outer appearance. However he
KNOWS that he is being a sharlatan.
The Ending
The officer: Our prince is not a friend to double
dealing,
His eyes can read men's inmost hearts, and all
The art of hypocrites cannot deceive him.
His sharp discernment sees things clear and true;
His mind cannot too easily be swayed,
For reason always holds the balance even.
He honours and exalts true piety,
But knows the false, and views it with disgust.
Louis XIV
Louis XIV, the
Sun King, reigned
in France from
1643-1715. He
was an absolute
monarch who ruled
by divine right and
was considered
God's vicar on
earth.
The court he ruled over was incredibly
elaborate, with complex public
ceremonies for every moment of the day
and night, including a very public
dressing ceremony, where the King
would be surrounded by increasing
crowds of courtiers as he went
through the process of getting
dressed each morning.
Early in Louis' reign (1648-49), there had
been a brief, but violent civil war, the
Fronde; this is the uprising that Orgon's
friend was involved in; his papers nearly
got Orgon arrested.
The Literary Golden Age
• French literature under Louis XIV enjoyed
one of the rare "golden ages," like those of
Shakespearean England and Classical
Greece.
• French writers drew on the Greek and Latin
classics as sources for many of their stories
and plays. They greatly admired the
restraint, formal excellence and power of
these classics.
• But, this was not a period of hollow imitation-brilliant new literature was created out of these
ancient sources.
• The French classicists of this period venerated
reason and good sense, not formal logic.
• Cleante, in Tartuffe, is a fine example of this ideal.
– He is a reasonable man, a pious man, but not
a dry academic.
– He exhibits good sense, not rigid logic.
– Of course, within the comic world of the
play, no one pays any attention to his
reasonable suggestions, and that is part of
the fun of Tartuffe.
Jean Racine
• 1639-1699
• Racine was well educated at the school of a religious
brotherhood at Port Royal, and, unlike most of the
dramatists of the age, he knew Greek as well as
Latin. He is a true classists
• Playwright, poet, master of the classical French
tragedy in the time of Moliere.
• Racine took his subjects from scripture, antiquity or
mythology and became very popular with his plays
of blind, passionate love.
• He was in competition with Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille
You need to know who this is to
understand from whom Racine is
rebelling.
• He was one of the three great 17th Century
French dramatists, along with Molière and
Racine.
• He has been called “the founder of French
tragedy” and produced plays for nearly 40
years.
The Laws of Tragedy
• Tragedy deals with affairs of the state
(wars, dynastic marriages); comedy deals
with love. For a work to be tragic, it need
not have a tragic ending.
• Although Aristotle says that catharsis
(purgation of emotion) should be the goal of
tragedy, this is only an ideal.
• In conformity with the moral codes of the
period, plays should not show evil being
rewarded or nobility being degraded.
• The stage -- in both comedy and tragedy -should feature noble characters (this would
eliminate many low-characters, typical of
the farce, from Corneille's comedies). Noble
characters should not be depicted as vile
(reprehensible actions are generally due to
non-noble characters in Corneille's plays).
Play Characteristics
• Racine induced the action to its bare bones -- no
under-plots, no digressions, episodes, or characters
extraneous to the main action.
• No extravagant sensational incidents such as
Corneille delighted.
• Racine’s object was to depict the possibilities of
passion implicit in the common experiences of
man, the living reality instead of the exceptional
situation.
• Corneille had declared it a law that the subject of
a fine tragedy ought not to be probable; to which
Racine answered that nothing but what is
probable should ever be used in tragedy.
• Racine formed an austere and elegant style
appropriate to such simplicity.
• He avoided windy, rhetorical declamations
and "purple patches," and expressed
complex things with ease and beauty.
• His was an authentic voice, not an echo.
• Given a simple situation, he sought to go
deeper into it, to throw upon it the
searchlight of understanding combined with
a passionate sympathy.
• If Corneille was more concerned with events, so
Racine was more concerned with character.
• He gave more importance to the passion of love
than any previous dramatist had ever done.
• He said that as “love is the most universal of
passions, so it is therefore capable of being the
most tragic.”
• For Racine love best displays the peculiarities, the
fickleness, the weaknesses and strength of
character.
• There are few ways of showing such a passion as
avarice, for example, there are many ways of
being in love.
Phaedra
• "Phèdre" ("Phaedra") by French painter Alexandre Cabanel
Based on an the Greek Play
Hippolytus
• Hippolytus (also known as Hippolytos) is an
Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, based on the
myth of Hippolytus, son of Theseus.
• The play was first produced for the City Dionysia
of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of
a trilogy.
• Euripides first treated the myth in Hippolytos
Kalyptomenos (Hippolytus Veiled), now lost.
• Scholars are virtually unanimous in believing
that the contents to the missing Kalyptomenos
portrayed a shamelessly lustful Phaedra who
directly propositions Hippolytus, to the
displeasure of the audience.
Euripides
• This failure prompted Euripides to revisit the myth
in Hippolytos Stephanophoros ("Hippolytus who
wears a crown"), this time with a modest Phaedra
who fights her sexual appetites.
• The surviving play offers a much more evenhanded and psychologically complex treatment of
the characters than is commonly found in
traditional retelling of myths.
• The gods play a very important role in
Hippolytus, framing the action.
– Aphrodite appears at the beginning and Artemis at the
end, and they were possibly represented onstage
throughout the action in the form of statues.
– These two goddesses can be taken as representing the
conflicting emotions of passion and chastity.
The genealogy of Phèdre gives a number of
indications as to her character's destiny.
• Descended from Helios, god of the Sun, and
Pasiphaë, she nevertheless avoids being in
the judgmental presence of the sun
throughout the play.
• The simultaneous absence of a god-figure
combined with the continual presence of
one has been extensively explored in Lucien
Goldmann's Le Dieu caché. (The Hidden
God; a Study of Tragic Vision in the
Pensees of Pascal and the Tragedies of
Racine. Trans. Philip Thody. London:
Routledge, 1964. )
• This sense of patriarchal judgment is
extended to Phèdre's father, Minos, who is
responsible for weighing the souls of the
dead upon their arrival in Hades.
• Phèdre is right to fear judgment; she is
driven to an incestual love for her
stepson Hippolyte, much like the other
women in her family, who tended to
experience desires generally considered
taboo.
• Her mother, Pasiphaë was cursed by
Aphrodite (or Poseidon) to fall in love
and mate with a bull, giving rise to the
legendary man/bull hybrid the Minotaur.
• Phèdre meets Theseus, her future
husband, when he arrives on the Minoan
scene to kill her monstrous half-brother,
the minotaur.
Everything about Phèdre is masterly:
• The tragic construction
• The deeply observed characters,
• the richness of the verse and the interpretation of the title
role by Marie Champmeslé.
– Voltaire called it "the masterpiece of the human mind."
• Contrary to Euripides’s version, Racine has Phèdre dying
on stage at the end of the play; she thus has had time to
learn of the death of Hippolyte.
• The character of Phèdre is one of the most remarkable in
Racine's tragic oeuvre.
• The instrument of others' suffering, she is also the victim
of her own impulses, a figure that inspires both terror and
pity.
The play depicts several kinds of love:
• Perverted love (of Phaedra for her stepson,
Hippolytus);
• Normal romantic love (between Hippolytus and
Aricia);
• Familial love (between Hippolytus and his father
Theseus);
• Friendship (between Theramenes and Hippolytus
and between Aricia and Ismene).
• Still another kind of love is the fierce, protective
motherly love exhibited by Oenone, who is
willing to slander Hippolytus on behalf of her
mistress, Phaedra.
• Each kind of love except friendship goes
tragically wrong.
Conflict and Theme: Phaedra’s
Struggle With a Forbidden Passion
• Phaedra burns with a forbidden passion–her love for her
stepson, Hippolytus.
• Although she has struggled mightily to subdue this passion
and even arranged the banishment of Hippolytus, her
desire for him remains strong.
• Even when he is absent, he is with her, occupying her
every thought. Phaedra blames Venus for her predicament,
maintaining that the goddess has infected her with
unrelenting passion.
Venus I felt in all my fever'd frame,
Whose fury had so many of my race
Pursued. With fervent vows I sought to shun
Her torments, built and deck'd for her a shrine,
And there, 'mid countless victims did I seek
The reason I had lost; but all for naught,
No remedy could cure the wounds of love!
• Blaming Venus, or fate, is a way for Phaedra to call
herself a child of misfortune who, through no fault of
her own, has been cursed with tormenting passion.
• However, Phaedra blames herself for yielding to this
passion–in thought if not in deed. She tells Oenone, “
When you shall know / My crime, my death will
follow none the less, / But with the added stain of
guilt.”
• Thus, Phaedra is in conflict with herself as well as
forces outside of herself.
• Could it be, though, that Phaedra is psychologically
unbalanced or genetically predisposed toward inordinate
desires?
• In our own day, newspapers regularly report stories
about female teachers “in love” with students,
stepparents “in love” with a stepson or stepdaughter, and
child molesters who “can’t help” themselves and repeat
their offenses even after doing time in prisons.
• One thing is certain: Phaedra
herself consciously and
willfully seals her doom when
she goes along with Oenone’s
scheme to accuse Hippolytus
of accosting her.
• Her tragedy becomes
everyone’s tragedy. Hippolytus
dies. Oenone dies. And, of
course, Phaedra dies. Theseus
is left without a wife or a son.
Aricia’s future with Hippolytus
is destroyed.
How will Moderns React?
• To twenty-first-century readers, the play's
most immediately obvious aspect may be its
conventional formalities:
– long declamatory speeches,
– stylized exchanges in compressed half
lines,
– the artificiality of conveying such
complicated relationships and histories
through the action of a single day.
• Such devices, however—which would have
seemed as artificial to seventeenth-century
audiences as they do to us, although more
familiar—intensify the impact of the central
characters' anguish and their desperate
attempts to deal with it. If the play's surface
is formal, its depths seethe with passion
Passion OED “A suffering or affliction of any kind.”
François-Marie Aroue
“Voltaire”
• 1694–1778
• Young Francois Marie received his education at
"Louis-le-Grand," a Jesuit college in Paris where he
said he learned nothing but "Latin and the Stupidities."
• At 16 he became a writer.
• He wrote witty verse mocking the royal authorities.
• For this he was imprisoned in the Bastille for 11
months.
• About this time he began calling himself Voltaire.
• In 1726, Voltaire insulted the powerful young
nobleman, "Chevalier De Rohan," and was given
two options: imprisonment or exile, so he ended
up in England for two years.
• On his return to Paris he staged several
unsuccessful dramas and the enormously popular
‘Zaïre'.
• He wrote a life of Swedish king Charles XII, and
in 1734 he published ‘Philosophical Letters', a
landmark in the history of thought.
• The letters, denouncing religion and government,
caused a scandal that forced him to flee Paris.
• He took up residence in the palace of Madame du
Châtelet, with whom he lived and traveled until
her death in 1749.
• Voltaire reportedly drank in excess of 50 cups of
coffee a day. (I bring this up to my wife periodically)
• He accepted he invitation of the King of Prussia,
"Frederick the Great," and moved to Potsdam (near
Berlin in Germany).
• In 1753, Voltaire left Potsdam to return to France.
• In 1759, Voltaire purchased an estate called
"Ferney" near the French-Swiss border where he
lived until just before of his death.
• Ferney became the intellectual capital of Europe.
Voltaire worked continuously throughout the years,
producing a constant flow of books, plays and other
publications. He wrote hundreds of letters to his
circle of friends. He was always a voice of reason.
Voltaire was often an outspoken critic of religious
intolerance and persecution.
• Voltaire returned to a hero's welcome in Paris at
age 83.
• The excitement of the trip was too much for him
and he died in Paris.
• Because of his criticism of the church Voltaire
was denied burial in church ground. He was
finally buried at an abbey in Champagne. In 1791
his remains were moved to a resting place at the
Pantheon in Paris.
• In 1814 a group of "ultras" (right-wing religious
believers) stole Voltaire's remains and dumped
them in a garbage heap. No one was the wiser for
some 50 years. His enormous sarcophagus
(opposite Rousseau's) was checked and the
remains were gone.
• His heart, however, had been removed from his
body, and now lies in the Bibliotheque Nationale
in Paris.
• His brain was also removed, but after a series of
passings-on over 100 years, disappeared after an
auction.
Candide
The Optimist or All for the Best
• Vital to understand the nature of Satire:
• A shared sense of values with the audience.
– The basis in reality of events made ludicrous
• Although historically true, satire must
always hold action at a distance.
– Third person narrator
– Swift movement of action
The nature of the work
• As Voltaire himself described it, the purpose of Candide
was to "bring amusement to a small number of men of
wit".
• Took him three days to write
• No description of land or mind typcial of the novel.
• The author achieves this goal, according to literary
analysts, by combining his sharp wit with a fun parody of
the classic adventure-romance plot.
• As the initially naïve protagonist eventually comes to a
mature conclusion – however noncommittal – the novella
is bildungsroman, or at least a parody of one.
• Candide is confronted with horrible events described in
painstaking detail so often that it becomes humorous.
• Frances K. Barasch, literary analyst, described Voltaire's
matter-of-fact narrative as treating topics such as mass
death "as coolly as a weather report".
• No social mercy—his horrors are in fact terribly real.
• The fast-paced and improbable plot – in which characters
repeatedly narrowly escape death and otherwise defy
traditional reason – allows for compounding tragedies to
befall the same characters over and over again.
• In the end, Candide is primarily, as described by Voltaire's
biographer Ian Davidson, "short, light, rapid and
humorous.”
• This attack against optimism is surprising helpful for
optimisms (if tempered with realism).
• A Quick Commentary: Dr. Paul LeClerc, president of The
New York Public Library, talks about his first encounter
with the book, the first Random House publication of
"Candide," and Voltaire's relevance today.
• The Earthquake of Lisbon
– Based on a real earthquake that leveled the city of Lisbon in
1755.
– The earthquake represents all devastating natural events for
which no reasonable justification can be found, though
thinkers like Pangloss might do their best to fabricate flimsy
justifications in order to maintain a philosophical approach
to life.
Seven Years' War
• In the historiography of some
countries, the war is
alternatively named after
combats in the respective
theaters: the French and Indian
War (North America, 1754–63),
Pomeranian War (Sweden and
Prussia, 1757–62), Third
Carnatic War (Indian
subcontinent, 1757–63), and
Third Silesian War (Prussia and
Austria, 1756–63).
Admirl John Byng
"in this country, it is
good to kill, from time
to time, an admiral to
encourage the others"
Candide
• The 7 Year War was a global military
conflict between 1756 and 1763, involving
most of the great powers of the time and
affecting Europe, North America, Central
America, the West African coast, India, and
the Philippines.
• The war ended with the peace treaties of
Paris (Bourbon France and Spain, Great
Britain) and of Hubertusburg
(Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, Saxon elector)
in 1763.
• The war was characterized by sieges and
arson of towns as well as open battles
involving extremely heavy losses; overall,
some 900,000 to 1,400,000 people died.
Religion
• The Portuguese
Inquisition:
• The Jesuit Order
• Rabid Protestant Anti
–Catholicism
• The Roman Catholic
Church
Above is a 1495 representation of an auto-da-fé in Southern France--The
people of Lisbon believed that this "great ceremony was an infalliable
means of preventing the earth from quaking."
Voltaire's Method
• The main method of Candide's satire is to
ironically contrast great tragedy and
comedy by juxtaposing them.
• The book does not invent or exaggerate
evils of the world; it only displays real ones
starkly, allowing Voltaire to simplify subtle
philosophies and cultural traditions,
highlighting their flaws.
• Thus Candide derides Optimism, for
instance, with a compounding deluge of
horrible, yet historical (or plausible), events
with no apparent redeeming qualities.
• Primarily, Voltaire depicts the worst of the
world and his pathetic hero's desperate
effort to fit it into his Optimistic outlook.
Indeed, much of the work is a treatment of
evil.
• Rarely does Voltaire diverge from this
technique, but there is at least one notable
exception: his description of El Dorado, a
fantastic village in which the inhabitants are
simply rational, and their society is just and
reasonable.
• The positivity of El Dorado may be
contrasted with the pessimistic attitude of
the majority of the book
Some Questions for You to Consider
• What role does sexuality have in Candide? Why
does he find it useful?
• What about the voice of reason, Martin, in a mad
world?
• What shall we do with Cacambo, Candide’s
practical servant.
• Is Optimism just a shield to avoid the true nature
of the world?
– If it is not always, are there times when it is?
– Do Christians avoid the truth about God’s world?
Themes
Leibniz
• The Folly of Optimism
The fundamental
and often universal
ideas explored in a
literary work
– Pangloss and his student Candide maintain that “everything is
for the best in this best of all possible worlds.” This idea is a
reductively simplified version of the philosophies of a number
of Enlightenment thinkers, most notably Gottfried Wilhelm
von Leibniz.
– To these thinkers, the existence of any evil in the world would
have to be a sign that God is either not entirely good or not
all-powerful, and the idea of an imperfect God is nonsensical.
– These philosophers took for granted that God exists, and
concluded that since God must be perfect, the world he
created must be perfect also.
– According to these philosophers, people perceive
imperfections in the world only because they do not
understand God’s grand plan.
• The Uselessness of Philosophical Speculation
– One of the most glaring flaws of Pangloss’s optimism is
that it is based on abstract philosophical argument
rather than real-world evidence.
– In the chaotic world of the novel, philosophical
speculation repeatedly proves to be useless and even
destructive. Time and time again, it prevents characters
from making realistic assessments of the world around
them and from taking positive action to change adverse
situations.
– This judgment against philosophy that pervades
Candide is all the more surprising and dramatic given
Voltaire’s status as a respected philosopher of the
Enlightenment.
• The Hypocrisy of Religion
– Voltaire satirizes organized religion by means of a series of
corrupt, hypocritical religious leaders who appear throughout
the novel.
• he daughter of a Pope, a man who as a Catholic priest
should have been celibate;
• a hard-line Catholic Inquisitor who hypocritically keeps a
mistress;
• a Franciscan friar who operates as a jewel thief, despite the
vow of poverty taken by members of the Franciscan order.
• Finally, Voltaire introduces a Jesuit colonel with marked
homosexual tendencies.
– Though Voltaire provides these numerous examples of
hypocrisy and immorality in religious leaders, he does not
condemn the everyday religious believer. For example,
Jacques, a member of a radical Protestant sect called the
Anabaptists, is arguably the most generous and humane
character in the novel.
• The Corrupting Power of Money
– When Candide acquires a fortune in Eldorado, it looks
as if the worst of his problems might be over. Arrest and
bodily injury are no longer threats, since he can bribe
his way out of most situations. Yet, if anything, Candide
is more unhappy as a wealthy man.
• Candide’s money constantly attracts false friends.
Count Pococurante’s money drives him to such worldweary boredom that he cannot appreciate great art.
• The cash gift that Candide gives Brother Giroflée and
Paquette drives them quickly to “the last stages of
misery.”
• As terrible as the oppression and poverty that plague
the poor and powerless may be, it is clear that money—
and the power that goes with it—creates at least as
many problems as it solves.
Motifs
• Resurrection
The recurring structures,
contrasts, or literary
devices that can help to
develop and inform the
text’s major themes.
– On the one hand, they seem to suggest a strange,
fantastic optimism that is out of step with the general
tone of the novel. Death, the only misfortune from
which one would never expect a character to recover,
actually proves to be “reversible.”
– On the other hand, the characters who get “resurrected”
are generally those whose existence does more harm
than good.
• Rape and Sexual Exploitation
– Candide is full of uncommonly graphic accounts of the
sexual exploitation of women.
• The three main female characters—Cunégonde,
the old woman, and Paquette—are all raped,
forced into sexual slavery, or both. Both the
narrator's and the characters' attitudes toward these
events are strikingly nonchalant and matter-offact.
• Voltaire uses these women's stories to demonstrate
the special dangers to which only women are
vulnerable. Candide's chivalric devotion to
Cunégonde, whom he wrongly perceives as a
paragon of female virtue, is based on willful
blindness to the real situation of women.
• The male characters in the novel value sexual
chastity in women but make it impossible for
women to maintain such chastity, exposing
another hypocritical aspect of Voltaire's Europe
• Political and Religious Oppression
• Candide witnesses the horrors of oppression by
the authorities of numerous states and
churches. Catholic authorities burn heretics
alive, priests and governors extort sexual
favors from their female subjects, businessmen
mistreat slaves, and Candide himself is drafted
into and abused in the army of the Bulgar king
• Even the English government, which Voltaire
admired, executes an admiral for the “crime” of
fighting with insufficient audacity against the French.
• Powerful institutions seem to do no good—and
instead, much harm—to their defenseless subjects.
Voltaire himself protested loudly against political
injustice throughout his life.
• The characters in Candide, however, choose a
different route. Shortly after hearing about the
politically motivated killings of several Turkish
officials, they take the old farmer's advice and decide
to ignore the injustices that surround them,
channeling their wealth and energy instead into the
simple labors that bring them happiness.
Symbols
• Panglos
These are objects, characters,
figures, or colors used to represent
abstract ideas or concepts.
– Pangloss is less a well-rounded, realistic character than
a symbol of a certain kind of philosopher. His optimism
and logical fallacies are meant to represent the thought
of G.W. von Leibniz and other Enlightenment thinkers.
He is an open symbol of the folly both of blind
optimism and of excessive abstract speculation.
• The Garden
– Like the Garden of Eden but it is the end rather than the
beginning, its help comes from the useful work it
provides rather than ease, it affirms cause and affect
rather than Providential hoping
Some Wonderful Lines
“If we do not meet with agreeable things, we shall
at least meet with something new."
Sage Advise from Cacambo
"Is it true," said Candide, "that the people of Paris
are always laughing?"
"Yes," replied the abbe, "but it is with anger in
their hearts; they express all their complaints by
loud bursts of laughter, and commit the most
detestable crimes with a smile on their faces."
Candide in Paris
"A very good-for-nothing sort of a man I
assure you," answered the abbe, "one who
gets his livelihood by abusing every new
book and play that is written or performed;
he dislikes much to see anyone meet with
success, like eunuchs, who detest everyone
that possesses those powers they are deprived
of; he is one of those vipers in literature who
nourish themselves with their own venom; a
pamphlet-monger."
Martin’s Opinion of Critics
"I wish," said Martin, "she one day may make you
happy; but I doubt it much."
"You lack faith," said Candide.
"It is because," said Martin, "I have seen the
world."
Candide and Martin on Happiness
“That is very well put . . . but we must cultivate our
garden.”
Candide’s Final Observation
Works Cited
• "belles lettres." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
8 Feb. 2007 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article9124798>.
• Cliffnotes on Tartuffe
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id128,pageNum-2.html
• Tartuffe Study Guide
http://www.shakespearefest.org/tartuffe_study_guide.htm
• Bookrags on Tartuffe
http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-tartuffe/
• Study Guide of Tartuffe from Northern Virginia
Community College
http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/eng252/tartuffestudy.htm
• “Devilish Drama” Haymarket – Tartuffe.
http://www.newburytheatre.co.uk/archive/2
00310a.htm
• The Norton Anthology of World Literature
http://www.wwnorton.com/nawol
• Jaffee, Valerie and Ward, Selena.
SparkNotes on Candide. 28 Feb. 2006
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/