Section 18: The Enlightenment in Europe

Reference Vol. D. (1650-1800)

Major Chapter Points1. 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 adeptat wrongly faulting womankind,not seeing you're alone to blamefor faults you plant in woman's mind. After you've won by urgent pleathe right to tarnish her good name,you still expect her to behave--you, that coaxed her into shame. You batter her resistance downand then, all righteousness, proclaimthat 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.

• Both French and English society were strictly hierarchical.

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

• 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 ever-elusive 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/Fielding'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 ImposterDramatic 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 XIVLouis 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

• 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.

You need to know who this is to understand from whom Racine is rebelling.

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 even-handed 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.”

“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. 

François-Marie Aroue

• 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.

CandideThe 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

• 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?

Some Questions for You to Consider

Themes• The Folly of Optimism

– 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 fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work

Leibniz

• 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 world-weary 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

– 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 recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

• 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-of-fact.

• 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

– 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

These are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

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/article-9124798>.

• Cliffnotes on Tartuffe http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/id-128,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/200310a.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/