Voltaire | the King of Wits
#onhisbirthdaytoday
“There is vastness and variety in Voltaire’s creative output”
“He created a massive network of fake identities to protect himself"
“Voltaire bombarded European culture with endless assaults against the status quo”
‘‘Voltaire is a good vaccine against stupidity”
“He is the first human rights activist”
“Voltaire the king of wits was also king of coffee drinkers. Even in his old age he was said to have consumed fifty cups daily”
“The ideas Voltaire promoted in his work influenced important thinkers of both the American and French revolutions”
“I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Voltaire was born François-Marie Arouet on November 21, 1694, to an upper-middle-class Parisian family. Even at a very early age, he loved being the center of attention.
When Voltaire was ten, he was sent to an exclusive Jesuit school for boys, where he quickly gained a reputation as a class clown. Although he loved learning, he was very resentful of authority and constantly argued with his teachers over religion.
He used a record 178 to 200 different pseudonyms during his lifetime. While most people know him by his most famous pen name, “Voltaire” (he was born François-Marie Arouet), he eventually created a massive network of fake identities to protect himself from the French authorities, as a survival tactic. 😊
In addition to his startling views on religion, Voltaire had a fondness for writing scandalous poems and stories. Upon his graduation, he announced to his father that he intended to be a writer. His father thought that literary pursuits were useless and encouraged him to become a lawyer instead.
When an anonymous poem surfaced in 1717 accusing the duke of committing incest with his daughter, there was little doubt about the identity of its author. The duke imprisoned Voltaire in the Bastille for a year. He was released in the spring of 1718, under the condition that he would not live in Paris. This was Voltaire’s first taste of exile, a form of punishment he would receive several times throughout his life.
Meanwhile, a theater company accepted his first play, Oedipus, and by the time it opened in Paris, he had officially changed his name from Arouet to Voltaire. Oedipus was a tremendous success and by the age of twenty-four, the notorious Voltaire had become a literary sensation.
For the rest of his life, Voltaire worked tirelessly, writing plays, poems, novels, history books, philosophy texts, encyclopedia articles, and an endless list of pamphlets and letters.
Through his works, he became known as the chief advocate of the Enlightenment, a philosophical movement rooted in the powers of human rea son. Voltaire did not invent the Enlightenment; most of the views he preached had already been expressed by others.
But Voltaire is regarded as a key Enlightenment thinker because—more than anyone else in his time—he helped to popularize the new philosophy in France and abroad.
By exploiting every medium that existed in his day, Voltaire bombarded European culture with endless assaults against the status quo: Christianity and government practices were his primary targets. Voltaire’s writings were distinctive and easily recognizable.
Heavily influenced by the writings of the English philosopher John Locke, Voltaire approached the study of history with an Enlightenment theme.
He viewed the evolution of history as the gradual victory of rationalism over ignorance and superstition. This theme also provided the basis for many of his fictional works, most notably his novel, Candide.
In fact, Candide stands as an all-out attack on the philosophy of optimism, which states that everything that happens—no matter how horrible—is for the best. In its place, Voltaire offers a simple, practical solution to the world’s problems: cooperation.
“Voltaire is deeply interested in exposing the disgraceful abuses of power, while arguably suggesting there is little to prevent them from happening; the only possibility for contentment is to attempt to escape from them and cultivate a separate space in the world through work and co-operation with others”.
Candide is the most famous and widely read work by Voltaire. Candide was written in 1758, when Voltaire was exiled in Geneva, and published anonymously the following year.
Voltaire consistently denied that he was the book’s author and even called it a ‘‘schoolboy’s joke.’’ Although Candide was banned in Geneva and ordered destroyed, it was immensely popular and contributed to the demise of optimism as a serious philosophy.
He wrote hundreds of letters, pamphlets, and essays to shame the judges and the church. This gave birth to the modern concept of “human rights” advocacy. In short, he is famously celebrated as the first human rights activist.
‘‘Voltaire is a good vaccine against stupidity,’’ writes Emmanuel Berl in an introduction to Voltaire’s works, and that kind of protection is as crucial today as it was in Voltaire’s day.
Sources
Gale’s Encyclopedia of Literature
“Introduction” from Candide or the Optimist
PS: You may want to read
our past post on Voltaire’s love for the brew HERE
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
