18th century French literature:

The work of Voltaire

The period known as the Enlightenment has been defined in many different ways, yet at its broadest, it was a philosophical, intellectual and cultural movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It stressed reason, logic, criticism and freedom of thought over dogma, blind faith and superstition. Logic had been used by the ancient Greeks, but it was now included in a worldview which argued that empirical observation and the examination of human life could reveal the truth behind human society and self, as well as the universe.

Enlightenment thinking held that human life and character could be improved through the use of education and reason. The universe, when considered to be a functioning machine could also be altered. The Enlightenment thus brought interested thinkers into direct conflict with the political and religious establishment. They challenged religion with science and empiricism. The Enlightenment thinkers wanted to do more than understand, they wanted to change things for the better. They also believed that reason and science would improve lives.

The spearhead of the Enlightenment was a body of well connected writers and thinkers from across Europe and North America who became known as the "Philosophes", which is French for philosophers. These leading thinkers formulated, spread and debated the Enlightenment through works of art and literature. Where historians once believed that the "Philosophes" were the sole carriers of Enlightenment thought, they now generally accept that they were merely the vocal tip of a much more widespread intellectual awakening among the middle and upper classes, turning them into a new social force. These were professionals such as lawyers and administrators, office holders, higher clergy and landed aristocracy.

Voltaire and the influences upon him

Voltaire was one of the leading French thinkers of the 18th century's Age of Enlightenment. A philosopher, writer, deist, essayist, and satirist, he is famous for Philosophical Letters, and Candide, in which he satirizes man's blind optimism. Voltaire's real name was Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), and he was born to a wealthy family in Paris. Intended for the legal profession, he went to a college run by Jesuit priests studying law but rebelled against his family's wishes to pursue a literary career. He was imprisoned in the Bastille for penning libelous poems, during which time he wrote tragedies and adopted the name of Voltaire. After a second spell in prison, he quit France for England to avoid more trouble, and there he came under the lasting influence of the works of John Locke and Sir Isaac Newton.

John Locke

The "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" or "Essay" for short, is John Locke's greatest philosophical work, one of the greatest influences for another century and for this he is considered to be the greatest British philosopher of all time. The subject of "Essay" is the nature of human understanding, the way in which the human mind collects, organizes, classifies and makes judgments based on data received through the senses. His theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and "the self," which figures prominently in the later works of the successors to his "Essay", including philosophers George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume. A good friend of scientists Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, Locke wanted to set the foundations of human knowledge on a sound scientific footing. For Locke, there is no innate knowledge or idea of God, as all things must be derived from experience, through sense organs. This is essentially "empiricism."

Sir Isaac Newton

Was an English scientist, physicist, mathematician and astronomer, famous for discovering gravity and three laws of motion stated in his masterpiece "Principia Mathematica", the basis for all modern physics. He created the mathematics of calculus, worked on the nature of light and the construction of telescopes; he also devoted researches to alchemy and theology. He scientific discoveries and thinking had a large influence on Voltaire, who championed reason.

Candide

Voltaire's constant criticism of the Catholic Church and the French government got him into serious trouble. He became a strong voice for freedom of expression, alongside his emphasis on reason. He wrote many satires on what he saw as the abuse of power by society's elite, inevitably bringing himself deeper into conflict with society's elite. In his Philosophical Dictionary, he views religion as he relates it to the qualities of a theist: "...for the simple worship of a God has preceded all the systems of the world. He speaks a language that all peoples understand, while they do not understand one another". It is small wonder that the Church found him a vexation. Of all Volaire's commentaries on life and writing, there is none that is better know or celebrated as Candide. This is undoubtedly due to the range and impact of the themes covered within the novel. The most pertinent of these are as follows:-

The hypocrisy of religion

Voltaire satirizes organized religion by means of a series of corrupt, hypocritical religious leaders who appear throughout the novel. The reader encounters the 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; and 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. Religious leaders in the novel also carry out inhumane campaigns of religious oppression against those who disagree with them on even the smallest of theological matters. 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.

Pangloss and his student Candide maintain that "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." This idea is a reductive simplified version of the philosophies of a number of Enlightenment thinkers. 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. Because Voltaire does not accept that a perfect God (or any God) has to exist, he can afford to mock the idea that the world must be completely good, and he heaps merciless satire on this idea throughout the novel.

The optimists, Pangloss and Candide, suffer and witness a wide variety of horrors-floggings, rapes, robberies, unjust executions, disease, an earthquake, betrayals, and crushing ennui. These horrors do not serve any apparent greater good, but point only to the cruelty and folly of humanity and the indifference of the natural world. Pangloss struggles to find justification for the terrible things in the world, but his arguments are simply absurd.

An example of this is when he claims that syphilis needed to be transmitted from the Americas to Europe so that Europeans could enjoy New World delicacies such as chocolate. More intelligent and experienced characters have all reached pessimistic conclusions about humanity and the world. By the novel's end, even Pangloss is forced to admit that he doesn't "believe a word of" his own previous optimistic conclusions.

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. The experience of watching his money trickle away into the hands of unscrupulous merchants and officials tests his optimism in a way that no amount of flogging could. In fact, Candide's optimism seems to hit an all-time low after he is cheated. It is at this point that he chooses to make the pessimist Martin his traveling companion. 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.

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 (or Empiricism). 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. Pangloss is the character most susceptible to this sort of folly. While Jacques drowns, Pangloss stops Candide from saving him "by proving that the bay of Lisbon had been formed expressly for this Anabaptist to drown in."

While Candide lies under rubble after the Lisbon earthquake, Pangloss ignores his requests for oil and wine and instead struggles to prove the causes of the earthquake. At the novel's conclusion, Candide rejects Pangloss's philosophies for an ethic of hard, practical work.

With no time or leisure for idle speculation, he and the other characters find the happiness that has so long eluded them. 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.