François-Marie Arouet
(November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire
, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosopher known for his wit and his defence of civil liberties, including both freedom of religion and free trade.
Voltaire was a prolific writer and produced works in almost every literary form including plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works, more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets.
He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them. A satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Catholic Church dogma and the French institutions of his day.
Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (along with Montesquieu, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau) whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.
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Life
Early career
François Marie Arouet was born in Paris, the youngest of the five children
[1] (and the only one who survived) of
François Arouet (1650–January 1, 1722), a notary who was a minor treasury official, and his wife,
Marie Marguerite d'Aumart (ca. 1660–July 13, 1701), from a noble family of the
Poitou province. Voltaire was educated by
Jesuits at the
Collège Louis-le-Grand (1704–11), where he learned
Latin and
Greek; later in life he became fluent in
Italian,
Spanish and
English.
[2]
By the time he left college, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer – however, his father wanted him to become a lawyer. Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a
lawyer, spent much of his time writing satirical poetry. When his father found him out, he sent Voltaire to study law, this time in the provinces. Nevertheless, he continued to write, producing essays and historical studies not always noted for their accuracy, though most were. Voltaire's wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families he mixed with. Voltaire's father then obtained a job for him as a secretary to the French
ambassador in the Netherlands, where Voltaire fell in
love with a French
refugee named
Catherine Olympe Dunoyer. Their scandalous elopement was foiled by Voltaire's father and he was forced to return to France.
Most of Voltaire's early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for his energetic attacks on the government and the
Catholic Church. These activities were to result in numerous imprisonments and exiles.
He allegedly wrote satirical verses about the
aristocracy and one of his writings about the
Régent led to him being imprisoned in the
Bastille for eleven months. While there, he wrote his debut play,
Œdipe
. Its success established his reputation.
The name "Voltaire"
The name "Voltaire", which the author adopted in 1718 both as a pen name and for daily use, is an
anagram on "
AROVET LI
," the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, and the initial letters of the
sobriquet "
le jeune
" ("the younger").
[3] The name also echoes in reverse order the syllables of the name of a family
château in the
Poitou region: "
Airvault". The adoption of the name "Voltaire" following his incarceration at the Bastille is seen by many to mark Voltaire's formal separation from his family and his past.
Richard Holmes [4] supports this derivation of the name, but adds that a writer such as Voltaire would have intended it to also convey its connotations of speed and daring. These come from associations with words such as "
voltige
" (
acrobatics on a trapeze or horse), "
volte-face
" (a spinning about to face one's enemies), and "
volatile
" (originally, any winged creature). "Arouet" was not a noble name fit for his growing reputation, especially given that name's resonance with "
à rouer
" ("for thrashing") and "
roué
" (a "debauchee").
Voltaire is known to have used at least 178 separate pen names during his lifetime of writing.
[5]
England
The aptitude for quick, perceptive, cutting, witty and often scathingly critical repartee for which Voltaire is known today made him highly unpopular with many of his contemporaries, including much of the French
aristocracy. These sharp-tongued retorts were responsible for Voltaire's
exile from France, during which he resided in England.
After Voltaire offended the young French nobleman Chevalier de Rohan in late 1725, the aristocratic Rohan family obtained a royal
lettre de cachet
, an irrevocable and often arbitrary penal decree signed by the French King (
Louis XV, in the time of Voltaire) that was often bought by members of the wealthy
nobility to dispose of undesirables. They then used this warrant to force Voltaire first into imprisonment in the
Bastille and then into
exile without holding a trial or giving him an opportunity to defend himself.
[6] The incident marked the beginning of Voltaire's attempts to improve the French judicial system.
Voltaire's exile in England lasted over two years, and his experiences there greatly influenced many of his ideas. The young man was impressed by Britain's
constitutional monarchy in contrast to the French
absolute monarchy, as well as the country's support of the freedoms of speech and religion. He was also influenced by several of the neoclassical writers of the age, and developed an interest in earlier English literature, especially the works of
Shakespeare, still little known in continental Europe at the time. Despite pointing out his deviations from neoclassical standards, Voltaire saw Shakespeare as an example French writers might look up to, since drama in France, despite being more polished, lacked on-stage action. Later, however, as Shakespeare's influence was being increasingly felt in France, Voltaire would endeavour to set a contrary example with his own plays, decrying what he considered Shakespeare's barbarities.
After almost three years in exile, Voltaire returned to Paris and published his views on British attitudes towards government, literature and religion in a collection of essays in letter form entitled the
Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais
(
Philosophical Letters on the English
). Because he regarded the British constitutional monarchy as more developed and more respectful of human rights (particularly religious tolerance) than its French counterpart, these letters met great controversy in France, to the point where copies of the document were burnt and Voltaire was again forced to leave France.
Château de Cirey
Voltaire's next destination was the Château de Cirey, located on the borders of
Champagne and
Lorraine. The building was renovated with his money, and here he began a relationship with the Marquise du Châtelet, Gabrielle Émilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil (famous in her own right as
Émilie du Châtelet). Cirey was owned by the Marquise's husband,
Marquis Florent-Claude du Chatelet, who sometimes visited his wife and her lover at the chateau. The relationship, which lasted for fifteen years, had a significant intellectual element. Voltaire and the Marquise collected over 21,000 books, an enormous number for the time. Together, they studied these books and performed experiments in the "
natural sciences" in his laboratory. Voltaire's experiments included an attempt to determine the properties of fire.
Having learned from his previous brushes with the authorities, Voltaire began his future habit of keeping out of personal harm's way, and denying any awkward responsibility. He continued to write, publishing plays such as
Mérope
and some short stories. Again, a main source of inspiration for Voltaire were the years of his British exile, during which he had been strongly influenced by the works of Sir
Isaac Newton. Voltaire strongly believed in Newton's theories, especially concerning
optics (Newton’s discovery that white light is composed of all the colors in the
spectrum led to many experiments at Cirey), and gravity (the story of Newton and the apple falling from the tree is mentioned in Voltaire's
Essai sur la poésie épique
, or
Essay on Epic Poetry
). Although both Voltaire and the Marquise were curious about the philosophies of
Gottfried Leibniz, a contemporary and rival of Newton, they remained "Newtonians" and based their theories on Newton’s works and ideas. Though it has been stated that the Marquise may have been more "Leibnizian", she did write "je newtonise," which translated means, "I am 'newtoning'" or "I 'newtonise'". Voltaire's book,
Eléments de la philosophie de Newton
(Elements of Newton's Philosophy), was probably co-written with the Marquise, and describes the other branches of Newton's ideas that fascinated him, including optics and the theory of attraction (gravity).
Voltaire and the Marquise also studied history—particularly those persons who had contributed to civilization. Voltaire's second essay in English had been
Essay upon the Civil Wars in France
. When he returned to France, he wrote a biographical essay of King
Charles XII, which marks the beginning of Voltaire's criticism toward established
religions. The essay won him the position of historian at the king's court. Voltaire and the Marquise also worked with philosophy, particularly with
metaphysics, the branch that dealt with what could not be directly proven: whether or not there was a
God, etc. Voltaire and the Marquise analyzed the
Bible, trying to discover its validity in their time. Voltaire's critical views on religion are reflected in his belief in
separation of church and state and religious freedom, ideas that he had formed after his stay in England.
Though deeply committed to the Marquise, Voltaire by 1744 found life at the château confining. On a visit to Paris that year, he found a new love: his niece. At first, his attraction to
Marie Louise Mignot was clearly sexual; he wrote her letters (only discovered in 1957) that verged on pornography, such as "My soul kisses yours; my prick, my heart, are in love with you. I kiss your beautiful ass..."
[7] Much later, they lived together, perhaps platonically, and remained together until Voltaire's death. Meanwhile, the Marquise also took a lover, the Marquis de Saint-Lambert.
[8]
Sanssouci
After the death of the Marquise in childbirth in September 1749, Voltaire briefly returned to Paris and in 1751 moved to
Potsdam to join
Frederick the Great, a close friend and admirer of his.
[9] The king had repeatedly invited him to his palace, and now gave him a salary of 20,000 francs a year. Though life went well at first - in 1752 he wrote
Micromégas
, perhaps the first piece of
science fiction involving ambassadors from another planet witnessing the follies of humankind- his relationship with Frederick the Great began to deteriorate and he encountered other difficulties. Faced with a lawsuit and an argument with
Maupertuis, then president of the
Berlin Academy of Science, Voltaire wrote the
Diatribe du docteur Akakia
(Diatribe of Doctor Akakia) which satirised Maupertuis. This greatly angered Frederick, who had all copies of the document burned and arrested Voltaire at an inn where he was staying along his journey home.
Geneva and Ferney
Voltaire headed toward Paris, but Louis XV banned him from the city, so instead he turned to
Geneva, near which he bought a large estate (
Les Délices
). Though he was received openly at first, the law in Geneva which banned theatrical performances and the publication of
The Maid of Orleans
against his will made him move at the end of 1758 out of Geneva across the French border to
Ferney, where he had bought an even larger estate, and led to Voltaire's writing of
Candide, ou l'Optimisme
(Candide, or Optimism) in 1759. This satire on
Leibniz's philosophy of optimistic determinism remains the work for which Voltaire is perhaps best known. He would stay in Ferney for most of the remaining 20 years of his life, frequently entertaining distinguished guests, like
James Boswell,
Giacomo Casanova, and
Edward Gibbon.
[10] In 1764 he published his most important philosophical work, the
Dictionnaire Philosophique
, containing a series of articles, many of which were originally written for the
Encyclopédie.
From 1762 he began to champion unjustly persecuted people, the case of
Jean Calas being the most celebrated. This
Huguenot merchant had been tortured to death in 1763, supposedly because he had murdered his son for wanting to convert to Catholicism. His possessions were confiscated and his remaining children were taken from his widow and were forced to become members of a monastery. Voltaire, seeing this as a clear case of religious persecution, managed to overturn the conviction in 1765.
Death and burial
In February 1778, Voltaire returned for the first time in 20 years to Paris, among other reasons to see the opening of his latest tragedy,
Irene
. The 5-day journey was too much for the 83-year old, and he believed he was about to die on February 28, writing "I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition." However, he recovered, and in March saw a performance of
Irene
where he was treated by the audience as a returning hero.
However, he soon became ill again and died on May 30, 1778. When asked on his deathbed by a priest to renounce the devil and turn to God, he is alleged to have replied, "Now is no time to be making new enemies". His last words are said to have been, "For God's sake, let me die in peace."
[11]
thumb
Because of his well-known criticism of the church, which he had refused to retract before his death, Voltaire was denied a Christian burial, but friends managed to bury his body secretly at the abbey of Scellières in
Champagne before this prohibition had been announced. His heart and brain were embalmed separately. In July 1791, the
National Assembly, which regarded him as a forerunner of the French revolution, had his remains brought back to Paris to enshrine him in the
Panthéon. There was an elaborate ceremony, complete with an orchestra, and the music included a piece that
André Grétry composed specially for the event, which included a part for the "tuba curva". This was an instrument that originated in Roman times as the
cornu but had been recently revived under a new name.
[12]
A widely-repeated story that the remains of Voltaire were stolen by religious fanatics in 1814 or 1821 during the Pantheon restoration and thrown into a garbage heap is false. Such rumours resulted in the coffin being opened in 1897, which confirmed that his remains were still present.
[13]
Writings
Poetry
From an early age, Voltaire displayed a talent for writing verse and his first published work was poetry. He wrote two long poems, the
Henriade
and
The Maid of Orleans
, besides many other smaller pieces.
The
Henriade
was written in imitation of
Virgil, using the
Alexandrine couplet reformed and rendered monotonous for dramatic purposes. Voltaire lacked enthusiasm for and understanding of the subject, both of which negatively affected the poem's quality.
La Pucelle
, on the other hand, is a
burlesque work attacking religion and history. Voltaire's minor poems are generally considered superior to either of these two works.
Prose
Many of Voltaire's
prose works and romances, usually composed as pamphlets, were written as
polemics.
Candide
attacks religious and philosophical
optimism;
L'Homme aux quarante ecus
, certain social and political ways of the time;
Zadig
and others, the received forms of moral and metaphysical orthodoxy; and some were written to deride the
Bible
. In these works, Voltaire's ironic style, free of exaggeration, is apparent, particularly the restraint and simplicity of the verbal treatment.
Candide
in particular is the best example of his style.
Voltaire also has, in common with
Jonathan Swift, the distinction of paving the way for
science fiction's philosophical irony, particularly in his
Micromégas
.
In general criticism and miscellaneous writing, Voltaire's writing was comparable to his other works. Almost all of his more substantive works, whether in verse or prose, are preceded by prefaces of one sort or another, which are models of his caustic yet conversational tone. In a vast variety of nondescript pamphlets and writings, he displays his skills at journalism. In pure literary criticism his principal work is the
Commentaire sur Corneille
, although he wrote many more similar works – sometimes (as in his
Life and notices of Molière
) independently and sometimes as part of his
Siècles
.
Voltaire's works, especially his private letters, frequently contain the word "
l'infâme
" and the expression "
écrasez l'infâme
, or "crush the infamy". The phrase refers to abuses of the people by royalty and the clergy that Voltaire saw around him, and the superstition and intolerance that the clergy bred within the people.
[14] He had felt these effects in his own exiles, in the confiscations of his books, and the hideous sufferings of
Calas and
La Barre.
The most oft-cited Voltaire quotation is apocryphal. He is incorrectly credited with writing, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” These were not his words, but rather those of
Evelyn Beatrice Hall, written under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre in her 1906 biographical book
The Friends of Voltaire
. Hall intended to summarize in her own words Voltaire's attitude towards
Claude Adrien Helvétius and his controversial book
De l'esprit
, but her first-person expression was mistaken for an actual quotation from Voltaire. Her interpretation does capture the spirit of Voltaire’s attitude towards Helvetius; it had been said Hall's summary was inspired by a quotation found in a 1770 Voltaire letter to an Abbot le Roche, in which he was reported to have said, “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.”
[15] Nevertheless, scholars believe there must have again been misinterpretation, as the letter does not seem to contain any such quote.
[16]
Voltaire's largest philosophical work is the
Dictionnaire philosophique
, comprising articles contributed by him to the
Encyclopédie
and several minor pieces. It directed criticism at French political institutions, Voltaire's personal enemies, the
Bible, and the
Roman Catholic Church.
Amongst other targets, Voltaire criticized France's colonial policy in North America, dismissing the vast territory of
New France as "
a few acres of snow" (
"quelques arpents de neige"
).
Letters
Voltaire also engaged in an enormous amount of private correspondence during his life, totaling over 20,000 letters. The Besterman collected edition of these letters, completed only in 1964, fills 102 volumes.
[17] His personality shows through in the letters that he wrote: his energy and versatility, his unhesitating flattery, his ruthless sarcasm, his unscrupulous business faculty, and his resolve to double and twist in any fashion so as to escape his enemies.
One historian, however, called the letters "a feast not only of wit and eloquence but of warm friendship, humane feeling, and incisive thought."
[18]
Philosophy
Religion
Like many other key figures during the
European Enlightenment, Voltaire considered himself a
deist. He did not believe that absolute faith, based upon any particular or singular religious text or tradition of revelation, was needed to believe in God. In fact, Voltaire's focus was instead on the idea of a universe based on reason and a respect for nature reflected the contemporary
pantheism, increasingly popular throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and which continues in a form of deism today known as "Voltairean Pantheism."
He wrote, "What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a
necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason."
[19] [20]
In terms of religious texts, Voltaire's opinion of the Bible has been summarized by a 21st century author
[who?] as: 1) an outdated legal and/or moral reference, 2) by and large a metaphor, but one that still taught some good lessons, and 3) a work of Man, not a divine gift. These beliefs did not hinder his religious practice, however, though it did gain him somewhat of a bad reputation in the
Catholic Church. It may be noted that Voltaire was indeed seen as somewhat of a nuisance to many believers, and was almost universally known;
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote to his father the year of Voltaire's death, saying, "The arch-scoundrel Voltaire has finally kicked the bucket...."
[21]
Contradictory views of
Islam and its prophet,
Muhammad, can be found in Voltaire's writings. In a letter recommending his play
Fanaticism, or Mahomet
to
Pope Benedict XIV, Voltaire described the prophet as "the founder of a false and barbarous sect" and "a false prophet."
[22] Elsewhere, however, his views were more favourable. In
Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations
, he described Muhammad as the founder of "a wise, severe, chaste, and humane religion", and also said "The legislator of the Muslims, a terrible and powerful man, established his dogmas with his valor and arms; yet, his religion became benign and tolerant."
[23]
From translated works on Confucianism and Legalism, Voltaire drew on Chinese concepts of politics and philosophy (which were based on rational principles), to look critically at European organized religion and hereditary aristocracy.
There is an apocryphal story that his home at Ferney was purchased by the Geneva Bible Society and used for printing Bibles,
[24] but this appears to be due to a misunderstanding of the 1849 annual report of the
American Bible Society.
[25] Voltaire's chateau is now owned and administered by the
French Ministry of Culture.
Freemasonry
Voltaire was initiated into
Freemasonry one month before his death. On April 4, 1778 Voltaire accompanied
Benjamin Franklin into
Loge des Neuf Soeurs
in Paris, France and became an
Entered Apprentice Freemason, perhaps only to please Franklin.
[26]
Legacy
Voltaire perceived the French
bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the
aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the
church as a static force useful only as a counterbalance since its "religious tax" or the
tithe helped to create a strong backing for revolutionaries.
Voltaire distrusted
democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses.
[27] To Voltaire, only an enlightened
monarch or an
enlightened absolutist, advised by
philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of his subjects and kingdom. Voltaire essentially believed
enlightened despotism to be the key to progress and change.
The most enduring of Voltaire's written works is his novella,
Candide, ou l'Optimisme
(Candide, or Optimism, 1759), which satirized the philosophy of optimism.
Candide
was also subject to censorship and Voltaire jokingly claimed the actual author was a certain "Demad" in a letter, where he reaffirmed the main polemical stances of the text.
[28]
Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, such as: "
Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer
" ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"), contained in a verse epistle from 1768, addressed to the anonymous author of a controversial work,
The Three Impostors
.
Voltaire is remembered and honored in France as a courageous polemicist who indefatigably fought for
civil rights – the
right to a fair trial and
freedom of religion – and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the
ancien régime
. The
ancien régime
involved an unfair balance of power and taxes between the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobles), and the Third Estate (the commoners and middle class, who were burdened with most of the taxes).
Voltaire has had his detractors among his later colleague. The Scottish Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle argued that, while Voltaire was unsurpassed in literary form, not even the most elaborate of his works were of much value for matter and that he never uttered an original idea of his own.
While he often used China,
Siam and Japan as examples of brilliant non-European civilizations and harshly criticized
slavery,
[29] he also believed that Jews were "an ignorant and barbarous people."
[30]
The town of
Ferney, where Voltaire lived out the last 20 years of his life, is now named
Ferney-Voltaire in honor of its most famous resident. His
château
is a
museum.
Voltaire's library is preserved intact in the
National Library of Russia at
St. Petersburg, Russia.
In Zurich 1916, the theater and performance group who would become the early avant-garde movement
Dada named their theater The
Cabaret Voltaire. A late-20th-century
industrial music group then
named themselves after the theater.
A character based on Voltaire plays an important role in
The Age of Unreason
, a series of four
alternate history novels written by American
science fiction and
fantasy author
Gregory Keyes.
In 2009, a
biopic,
Voltaire
, was released, starring
Liam Neeson as Voltaire.
[31]
Bibliography
Major works
- Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais
(1733), revised as Letters on the English
(circa 1778)
- Le Mondain
(1736)
- Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme
(1738)
- Zadig
(1747)
- Micromégas
(1752)
- Candide
(1759)
- Ce qui plaît aux dames
(1764)
- Dictionnaire philosophique
(1764)
- L'Ingénu
(1767)
- La Princesse de Babylone
(1768)
- Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs
(1770)
Plays
Voltaire wrote between fifty and sixty plays, including a few unfinished ones. Among them are these:
- Œdipe
(1718)
- Zaïre
(1732)
- Eriphile
(1732)
- Irène
- Socrates
- Mahomet
- Mérope
- Nanine
- The Orphan of China
(1755) [32]
Historical
- History of Charles XII, King of Sweden
(1731)
- The Age of Louis XIV
(1751)
- The Age of Louis XV
(1746 - 1752)
- Annals of the Empire - Charlemagne, A.D. 742 - Henry VII 1313
, Vol. I (1754)
- Annals of the Empire - Louis of Bavaria, 1315 to Ferdinand II 1631
Vol. II (1754)
- History of the Russian Empire Under Peter the Great
(Vol. I 1759; Vol. II 1763)
Chronology
Timeline of François Marie Arouet ('Voltaire') (1694-1778)
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at:1694 text:"1694 Born in Paris."
at:1701 text:"1701 Mother dies."
at:1704 text:"1704 Enters Collège des jésuites de Louis-le-Grand."
at:1711 text:"1711 Leaves Louis le Grand school. Begins studying law."
at:1712 text:"1712 Finishes law study."
at:1713 text:"1713 Studies in Caen & The Hague."
at:1714 text:"1714 Studies with de Caumartin, marquis de Saint-Ange, Maître Alain."
at:1715 text:"1715 Returns to Paris. Visits duchesse du Maine."
at:1716 text:"1716 Exiled to Sulle and then to Tully."
at:1717 text:"1717 Sent to Bastille for poems."
at:1718 text:"1718 Released from Bastille. Chooses name «Arouet de Voltaire».
at:1719 text:"1719 Visits chateaux of Sully, Villars, Le Bruel."
at:1720 text:"1720 Stays with Richelieu. Stays at La Source, home of Lord Bolingbroke."
at:1722 text:"1722 Father dies. Spying mission with Madame de Rupelmonde."
at:1723 text:"1723 Writes «La Henriade»."
at:1725 text:"1725 Attends Louis XV's wedding. Prevents Abbé Desfontaines' execution."
at:1726 text:"1726 Attacked by de Rohan. Sent to Bastille."
at:1729 text:"1729 Returns to Paris."
at:1731 text:"1731 In hiding in Rouen."
at:1732 text:"1732 Returns to Paris."
at:1733 text:"1733 Meets Émilie."
at:1734 text:"1734 Arrest attempt by Phélypeaux. Joins Richelieu at Phillipsburg."
at:1736 shift:(20,5) text:"1736 Flees to Brussels to avoid arrest."
at:1738 text:"1738 Enters Académie science competition."
at:1739 text:"1739 Moves to Palais Lambert."
at:1742 text:"1742 Detained by Frederick of Prussia for treason."
at:1743 text:"1743 Joins Académie Française. Mission to Berlin & Bayreuth."
at:1747 text:"1747 Flees to Sceaux."
at:1748 text:"1748 Guest of Stanislas of Poland."
at:1749 text:"1749 Émilie dies. Moves to Paris."
at:1753 text:"1753 Escapes to Leipzig."
at:1754 text:"1754 Banned from Paris."
at:1756 text:"1756 Defence of Admiral Byng."
at:1760 text:"1760 Decroze affair."
at:1761 text:"1761 Rochette affair."
at:1762 text:"1762 Begins correspondence with Catherine II of Russia."
at:1764 text:"1764 Visited by James Boswell."
at:1766 text:"1766 Flees to Switzerland."
at:1778 text:"1778 Dies in Paris."
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from:start till:1778 color:greenish
textcolor:black
at:1710 text:"1710 «Imitation de l'ode du R. P. Lejay sur sainte Geneviève»"
at:1712 text:"1712 «Amulius et Numitor»"
at:1715 text:"1715 Lampoon of Philippe II of Orléans"
at:1717 text:"1717 «Puero regnante», «J'ai vu» (poems)"
at:1718 text:"1718 «Oedipe»"
at:1720 text:"1720 «Artémire»"
at:1722 text:"1722 «l'Epître à Uranie», «Le Pour et le Contre»"
at:1723 text:"1723 «Poème de la Ligue»"
at:1724 text:"1724 «Mariamne»"
at:1725 text:"1725 «L'Indiscret», «La fête de Bélébat»
at:1726 text:"1726 «Hamlet»"
at:1727 text:"1727 «l'Essay on Civil Wars», «l'Essay on Epick Poetry»
at:1728 text:"1728 «La Henriade» (pub.)"
at:1730 text:"1730 «Brutus»"
at:1731 text:"1731 «La Mort de César» (pub.), «Histoire de Charles XII, roi de Suède»"
at:1732 text:"1732 «Ériphyle», «Zaïre», «Les Originaux», «Samson»"
at:1750 text:"1750 «Memnon», «Bababec», «Oreste»"
at:1733 text:"1733 «Le Temple du goût», «Remarques sur Pascal», «Lettres Philosophiques»"
at:1734 text:"1734 «Adélaïde Du Guesclin», «L’Échange»"
at:1736 text:"1736 «Mort de César», «Alzire», «L’Enfant prodigue», «Le Mondain»"
at:1737 text:"1737 «Elements of Newton»"
at:1738 text:"1738 «Essai sur la nature du feu et sur sa propagation»"
at:1739 text:"1739 «Siècle de Louis XIV» (suppressed)"
at:1740 text:"1740 «Pandore»", «Zulime»"
at:1741 text:"1741 «Mahomet»"
at:1742 text:"1742 «La Police sous Louis XIV»"
at:1743 text:"1743 «Mérope», «Thérèse», «La Mort de César» (perf.)
at:1744 text:"1744 «Nouvelles considérations sur l’histoire»"
at:1745 text:"1745 «La Princesse de Navarre», «Poème de Fontenoy», «Le Temple de la gloire»"
at:1746 text:"1746 «Le monde comme il va, vision de Babouc», «Le crocheteur borgne»"
at:1747 text:"1747 «Zadig», «La Prude», «Rome sauvée»"
at:1748 text:"1748 «Sémirame»"
at:1749 text:"1749 «Nanine», «La Femme qui a raison»"
at:1750 text:"1750 «Memnon», «Bababec», «Oreste»"
at:1751 text:"1751 « Le Duc d’Alençon ou les Frères ennemis»"
at:1752 text:"1752 «Diatribe du Docteur Akakia», «Micromégas», «Éloge»"
at:1753 text:"1753 «Supplément au Siècle de Louis XIV», «Annales de l’Empire depuis Charlemagne»"
at:1755 text:"1755 «La Pucelle», «l'Orphelin de la Chine», «Précis du siècle de Louis XV»"
at:1756 text:"1756 «Les deux consolés», «Le Songe de Platon», «Essai sur les meurs»""
at:1759 text:"1759 «Candide», «Natural Religion», «Socrate»"
at:1760 text:"1760 «L'Écossaise», «Tancrède»"
at:1761 text:"1761 «Lettres sur la Nouvelle Héloïse», «Sermon du Rabbin Akib»"
at:1762 text:"1762 «l'écueil du sage», «le Comte de Boursoufle»"
at:1763 text:"1763 «Traité sur la tolérance», «Histoire de l'empire de Russie»"
at:1764 text:"1764 «Olympie», «Discours aux Welches»"
at:1765 text:"1765 «Philosophie de l'histoire», «Les Anciens et les Modernes»"
at:1766 text:"1766 «le Philosophe ignorant», «André Destouches à Siam»"
at:1767 text:"1767 «Les Scythes», «L'Ingénu», «Charlot»"
at:1768 text:"1768 «La princesse de Babylone», «l'aubergiste» (letter)"
at:1769 text:"1769 «Les lettres d’Amabed», «Le cri des nations»"
at:1770 text:"1770 «Sophonisbe» (pub.)"
at:1771 text:"1771 «Les Pélopides ou Atrée et Thyeste» (not perf.)"
at:1772 text:"1772 «Epître à Horace» (poem)"
at:1773 text:"1773 «Aventure de la mémoire»"
at:1774 text:"1774 «Sophonisbe» (perf.)"
at:1775 text:"1775 «Histoire de Jenni, ou l'Athée et le Sage», «Les oreilles du comte de Chesterfield et le chapelain Goudman»"
at:1776 text:"1776 «l'Hôte et l'Hôtesse», «la Bible enfin expliquée»"
at:1777 text:"1777 «Histoire de l’établissement du christianisme», «Dernières remarques»"
at:1778 text:"1778 «Irene» (perf.)"
References
- Bodanis, David, Passionate Minds - The Great Enlightenment Love Affair
, ISBN 0-316-73087-4, Little, Brown, London, 2006
- Valérie Crugten-André, La vie de Voltaire
- Morley, J., The Works of Voltaire, A Contemporary Version
, New York: E.R. DuMont, 1901, A Critique and Biography
, notes by Tobias Smollett, trans. William F. Fleming.
- Encyclopedia Britannica 1911
- , ARTFL Project, University of Chicago
- , adlitteram.free.fr
- , Voltaire: Édition Electronique
- , visitvoltaire.com
- , School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland
See also
- Classical liberalism
- Contributions to liberal theory
- List of Freemasons
- List of coupled cousins
- Mononymous persons
- Political fiction
Notes
- Wright, p 505.
- Voltaire (1694-1778) - pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet
- Voltaire
- Sidetracks: explorations of a romantic biographer
- - "The appendixes offer even more: a listing of Voltaire's and Daniel Defoe's numerous pseudonyms (178 and 198, respectively)..."
- The Life of Voltaire
- Title Unavailable
- Davidson, ibid, page 7
- According to poet Richard Armour, Voltaire's friendship with Frederick William existed because "Frederick considered Voltaire to be immensely clever and so did Voltaire."
- The Scottish diarist Boswell recorded their conversations in 1764, which are published in ''Boswell and the Grand Tour''.
- Norman Davies, ''Europe: A history'' p. 687
- Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954; "Cornu" article
- ''Voltaire and Rousseau, Their Tombs in the Pantheon Opened and Their Bones Exposed'', New York Times, January 8, 1898
- A History of the Modern World
- They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions
- Charles Wirz, archivist at The Voltaire Institute and Museum in Geneva, recalled in 1994, that Hall, placed wrongly, between speech marks this quotation in two works devoted to Voltaire, recognising expressly the quotation in question was not one, in a letter of May 9, 1939, which was published in 1943 in volume LVIII under the title "Voltaire never said it" (pp.534-5) of the review "Modern language notes", Johns Hopkins Press, 1943, Baltimore. An extract from the letter: 'The phrase "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" which you have found in my book "Voltaire in His Letters" is my own expression and should not have been put in inverted commas. Please accept my apologies for having, quite unintentionally, misled you into thinking I was quoting a sentence used by Voltaire (or anyone else but myself).' "The words "my own" were underlined personally by Hall in her letter. To believe certain commentators - Norbert Guterman, ''A Book of French Quotations'', 1963 - Hall was referencing back to a Voltaire letter of February 6, 1770 to an abbot le Riche where Voltaire said "Reverend, I hate what you write, but I will give my life so that you can continue to write." The problem is that, if you consult the letter itself, the sentence there does not appear, nor even the idea: ''A M LE RICHE A AMIENS. 6 February. You left, Sir, des Welches for des Welches. You will find everywhere barbarians obstinate. The number of wise will always be small. It is true...it has increased; but it is nothing in comparison with the stupid ones; and, by misfortune, one says that God is always for the big battalions. It is necessary that the decent people stick together and stay under cover. There are no means that their small troop could tackle the party of the fanatics in open country. I was very sick, I was near death every winter; this is the reason, Sir, why I have answered you so late. I am not less touched by it than your memory. Continue to me your friendship; it comforts me my evils and stupidities of the human genre. Receive my assurances, etc.'' Voltaire, moreover, did not hesitate to wish censure against works he did not like. Here is what he writes in his “Atheism” article in the Dictionnaire philosophique: ''Aristophane (this man that the commentators admire because he was Greek, not thinking that Socrates was Greek also), Aristophane was the first who accustomed the Athenians to look at Socrates like an atheist. ... The tanners, the shoemakers and the dressmakers of Athens applauded a joke in which one represented Socrates raised in the air in a basket, announcing there was God, and praising himself to have stolen a coat by teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose bad government authorized such infamous licences, deserved well what it got, to become the slave of the Romans, and today of the Turks.''
- article in ''Forum for Modern Language Studies''
- Will and Ariel Durant, Rousseau and Revolution (1967), page 138
- Voltaire
- Voltaire. W. Dugdale, ''A Philosophical Dictionary ver 2'', 1843, Page 473 sec 1. Retrieved October 31, 2007.
- The Cambridge Companion to Mozart
- Voltaire Letter to Benedict XIV written in Paris on August 17, 1745 AD ''Your holiness will pardon the liberty taken by one of the lowest of the faithful, though a zealous admirer of virtue, of submitting to the head of the true religion this performance, written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect. To whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet, than to the vicar and representative of a God of truth and mercy? Your holiness will therefore give me leave to lay at your feet both the piece and the author of it, and humbly to request your protection of the one, and your benediction upon the other; in hopes of which, with the profoundest reverence, I kiss your sacred feet.''
- Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations
- A General Introduction to the Bible
- Voltaire's House and The Bible Society
- The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society
- The Philosophical Dictionary
- Letter on the subject of Candide, to the Journal encyclopédique July 15, 1759
- Title Unavailable
- Essai sur les Moeurs }} See also: {{cite book
- Hall, [1].
- This is a translation of a famous Chinese play Orphan of Zhao about the revenge of the orphan of the clan of Zhao on his enemies who killed almost every member of his clan. This play was based on an actual historical event in the Spring-Autumn period of Chinese history. Voltaire's version was translated by Arthur Murphy as ''The Orphan of China'' in 1759.
References
- Wright, p 505.
- Voltaire (1694-1778) - pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet
- Voltaire
- Sidetracks: explorations of a romantic biographer
- - "The appendixes offer even more: a listing of Voltaire's and Daniel Defoe's numerous pseudonyms (178 and 198, respectively)..."
- The Life of Voltaire
- Title Unavailable
- Davidson, ibid, page 7
- According to poet Richard Armour, Voltaire's friendship with Frederick William existed because "Frederick considered Voltaire to be immensely clever and so did Voltaire."
- The Scottish diarist Boswell recorded their conversations in 1764, which are published in ''Boswell and the Grand Tour''.
- Norman Davies, ''Europe: A history'' p. 687
- Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954; "Cornu" article
- ''Voltaire and Rousseau, Their Tombs in the Pantheon Opened and Their Bones Exposed'', New York Times, January 8, 1898
- A History of the Modern World
- They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions
- Charles Wirz, archivist at The Voltaire Institute and Museum in Geneva, recalled in 1994, that Hall, placed wrongly, between speech marks this quotation in two works devoted to Voltaire, recognising expressly the quotation in question was not one, in a letter of May 9, 1939, which was published in 1943 in volume LVIII under the title "Voltaire never said it" (pp.534-5) of the review "Modern language notes", Johns Hopkins Press, 1943, Baltimore. An extract from the letter: 'The phrase "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" which you have found in my book "Voltaire in His Letters" is my own expression and should not have been put in inverted commas. Please accept my apologies for having, quite unintentionally, misled you into thinking I was quoting a sentence used by Voltaire (or anyone else but myself).' "The words "my own" were underlined personally by Hall in her letter. To believe certain commentators - Norbert Guterman, ''A Book of French Quotations'', 1963 - Hall was referencing back to a Voltaire letter of February 6, 1770 to an abbot le Riche where Voltaire said "Reverend, I hate what you write, but I will give my life so that you can continue to write." The problem is that, if you consult the letter itself, the sentence there does not appear, nor even the idea: ''A M LE RICHE A AMIENS. 6 February. You left, Sir, des Welches for des Welches. You will find everywhere barbarians obstinate. The number of wise will always be small. It is true...it has increased; but it is nothing in comparison with the stupid ones; and, by misfortune, one says that God is always for the big battalions. It is necessary that the decent people stick together and stay under cover. There are no means that their small troop could tackle the party of the fanatics in open country. I was very sick, I was near death every winter; this is the reason, Sir, why I have answered you so late. I am not less touched by it than your memory. Continue to me your friendship; it comforts me my evils and stupidities of the human genre. Receive my assurances, etc.'' Voltaire, moreover, did not hesitate to wish censure against works he did not like. Here is what he writes in his “Atheism” article in the Dictionnaire philosophique: ''Aristophane (this man that the commentators admire because he was Greek, not thinking that Socrates was Greek also), Aristophane was the first who accustomed the Athenians to look at Socrates like an atheist. ... The tanners, the shoemakers and the dressmakers of Athens applauded a joke in which one represented Socrates raised in the air in a basket, announcing there was God, and praising himself to have stolen a coat by teaching philosophy. A whole people, whose bad government authorized such infamous licences, deserved well what it got, to become the slave of the Romans, and today of the Turks.''
- article in ''Forum for Modern Language Studies''
- Will and Ariel Durant, Rousseau and Revolution (1967), page 138
- Voltaire
- Voltaire. W. Dugdale, ''A Philosophical Dictionary ver 2'', 1843, Page 473 sec 1. Retrieved October 31, 2007.
- The Cambridge Companion to Mozart
- Voltaire Letter to Benedict XIV written in Paris on August 17, 1745 AD ''Your holiness will pardon the liberty taken by one of the lowest of the faithful, though a zealous admirer of virtue, of submitting to the head of the true religion this performance, written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect. To whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet, than to the vicar and representative of a God of truth and mercy? Your holiness will therefore give me leave to lay at your feet both the piece and the author of it, and humbly to request your protection of the one, and your benediction upon the other; in hopes of which, with the profoundest reverence, I kiss your sacred feet.''
- Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations
- A General Introduction to the Bible
- Voltaire's House and The Bible Society
- The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society
- The Philosophical Dictionary
- Letter on the subject of Candide, to the Journal encyclopédique July 15, 1759
- Title Unavailable
- Essai sur les Moeurs }} See also: {{cite book
- Hall, [1].
- This is a translation of a famous Chinese play Orphan of Zhao about the revenge of the orphan of the clan of Zhao on his enemies who killed almost every member of his clan. This play was based on an actual historical event in the Spring-Autumn period of Chinese history. Voltaire's version was translated by Arthur Murphy as ''The Orphan of China'' in 1759.