French · b. 1694
Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, and wit, a champion of reason and tolerance, best known for the satirical masterpiece Candide.
Voltaire (the pen name of François-Marie Arouet) was one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, a prodigiously productive writer who used his wit and pen to attack intolerance, superstition, and injustice.
His most famous work, Candide (1759), is a sparkling, savage satire that demolishes facile optimism — the idea that this is “the best of all possible worlds” — as its hapless hero suffers a cascade of disasters, ending with the famous counsel to “cultivate our garden.” He also wrote philosophical works, histories, plays, and a vast correspondence, and became a symbol of free thought.
Voltaire is celebrated as a champion of reason, liberty, and tolerance, and as a master of satire whose Candide remains endlessly sharp and funny.
by Voltaire
Candide, raised on Pangloss's philosophy that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, is expelled from his castle and travels through earthquakes, Inquisitions, the Seven Years War, and El Dorado, finding nothing to support Pangloss's optimism. The sustained satirical assault on Leibnizian theodicy that made Voltaire famous.
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