Category Archives: Age of Enlightenment

La Henriade

10 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by in Acadia, Age of Enlightenment, France, French Literature

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Voltaire (portrait by Nicolas de Largillière, c. 1724)

The ostensible subject [of La Henriade] is the siege of Paris in 1589 by Henry III in concert with Henry of Navarre, soon to be Henry IV, but its themes are the twin evils of religious fanaticism and civil discord.

La Henriade, wiki2.org

I think the above captures the spirit of Voltaire’s La Henriade. But it also describes Voltaire who spent a lifetime combating fanaticism, injustice and superstitions. Our subject is New France in its earliest days. We wish to know what happened during the half century separating Cartier’s attempt to found a settlement and Dugua de Mons’ similar endeavour. This period has not been chronicled, but Huguenots had been involved in the fur trade. Our King is no longer François Ier, but Henri IV.

The contents of this post may seem repetitive, but they sum up Cartier’s era and Henri IV’s brief reign. More importantly, although New France has Huguenot roots, I am portraying a good king who was attempting to put away a divided Kingdom. He was assassinated in 1610.

Jacques Cartier

Many Huguenots (French Protestants) or former Huguenots, were the founders of what became Canada. Dugua de Mons converted to Catholicism in 1593, at approximately the same time Henri IV became a Catholic. As King of Navarre, he had been a Huguenot.

Charlesbourg-Royal

Nothing suggests that Jacques Cartier was a Huguenot, but he settled Charlesbourg-Royal in 1541, a settlement that ended in 1543. François Ier (Francis Ist), had commissioned Pierre de La Rocque, sieur de Roberval, known as Roberval, a nobleman, to build the first French settlement in North America, but Roberval did not set sail until 1542. Although sources differ, Charlesbourg-Royal was settled, almost undoubtedly, by Jacques Cartier, rather than Roberval.

Jacques Cartier left France in 1541, a year before Roberval sailed for the New World. Jacques Cartier met Roberval, near Newfoundland, but refused to turn around to assist Roberval, as the King had requested. Jacques Cartier was not a nobleman, but he is the explorer who discovered Canada and named it Canada, after Kanata, its Amerindian name.

Francis 1st, King of France, did not ask Jacques Cartier to build a settlement. As we know, the person he commissioned was Pierre de La Rocque, sieur de Roberval, a nobleman. This may have been an affront to Jacques Cartier who had discovered “Canada.” Jacques Cartier lost 35 men during the first winter he spent at Charlesbourg-Royal, pictured above. By 1543, the settlement was abandoned. Then came a seemingly inactive period spanning nearly a half-century, but was it?

Henri IV

The settlements that survive are Dugua de Mons’ Port-Royal and Quebec City. As a noted, Champlain founded Quebec City, as Dugua’s employee. In fact, he and Mathieu da Costa were Dugua’s employees. So, Mathieu da Costa, the first Black in Canada, may have co-founded Quebec City, as an employee of Dugua de Mons. Mathieu de Coste is also Canada’s first linguist and he died in the settlement he co-founded. He was a free Black.

Had he not been a fur-trader, it is very unlikely that Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit could have built a trading-post. The Huguenots had been fleeing the Wars of Religion. Henri IV reigned from 1589 to 14 May 1610, when he was assassinated, and events do not suggest that during his reign Henri IV encouraged the growth of Protestantism. As we know, he signed the Édit de Nantes promoting religions toleration.

at the end of the Wars of Religion, [Henri IV] abjured Protestantism and converted to Roman Catholicism (1593) in order to win Paris and reunify France. With the aid of such ministers as the Duc de Sully, he brought new prosperity to France.

Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-IV-king-of-France

When Henri IV died he had yet to finish unifying France and, given Richelieu’s concept of absolutism, Huguenots would have to convert. Richelieu’s notion of absolutism required that all French citizens practice the same religion. As conceived by Richelieu, absolutism consisted of one religion, one language, and one King. When the Siege of Larochelle began, so did the Anglo-French War of 1627-1629. England was defeated and the Edict of Nantes, revoked in 1685, unleashing a reign of terror a Voltaire could not accept.

Acadie had just begun, when Marc Lescarbot wrote and published his Histoire de la Nouvelle-France. He had been in Acadia for one year, 1607-1608. He also produced a play, le Théâtre de Neptune, in Port-Royal. His History of Nouvelle-France is not a bad history. On the contrary. It is a good story. But Nouvelle-France consisted of one settlement, or habitation: Port-Royal that was about to crumble to be reborn again. The picture above features Lescarbot reading his play. The artist is William Jefferys (photo-credit: wiki2.org).

Would there ever be a King of France so loved that a young Voltaire would praise him in long cantos, or “fictions” “drawn from the regions of the marvelous” (Voltaire, 1859)? There wouldn’t, except in “fictions.”

Sources and Resources


Musing on Champlain & New France (9 May 2012)
Wikipedia
The Encyclopædia Britannica
La Henriade is an Internet Archive publication
La Henriade is a Wikisource publication

Love to everyone 💕

© Micheline Walker
9 September 2020
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The Idea of Absolute Music

06 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by in Absolute music, Age of Enlightenment, programme music, the ineffable

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— Renaissance Hurdy-Gurdy

Renaissance Hurdy-Gurdy

This article was posted in 2011, but the distinction between absolute and programmatic music is worth revisiting. The 2011 post contained the word “ineffable” and reads as follows:

I am in the process of writing a review of Carl Dalhaus’s (1928-1989) Idea of Absolute Music,[1] a difficult task that requires more reflection on my part.

However, the idea came to me that I should first blog about the subject.

My first step will be to quote E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Review of Beethoven‘s Fifth Symphony.[2] Hoffmann was so moved by the beauty of the Fifth Symphony that he called it “an intimation of infinity.” One is therefore tempted to associate this statement, first, with the idea of absolute music and, second, with the Romantic metaphysics of the Sublime.

ABSOLUTE versus PROGRAMMATIC MUSIC

As “an intimation of infinity,” Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony can indeed be linked with the Romantic metaphysics of the Sublime. Moreover, the Fifth Symphony is also “absolute music.”  However, although Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is, in my opinion, “an intimation of infinity,” and sublime, because of its choral movement, it is not “absolute music,” a term coined by Richard Wagner (Dalhaus, p. 18).

Absolute music is self-referential instrumental music. Therefore, it excludes Beethoven’s setting of Friedrich Schiller’s (1759-1805) “Ode to Joy” (“An die Freude”)  Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is deemed referential and, consequently, programmatic music, as are the Third Symphony, the “Eroika,” and the Sixth Symphony, “The Pastoral.” Also excluded are Mendelssohn’s iconic Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words). The forty-nine short pieces for the piano have titles and pieces of music that have a title are not absolute music. They belong to another category of music called “programme music” or programmatic music, a forerunner to music for films.

The most colourful event in the debate on absolute music is the premiere of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, in 1830. The composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was distributing the Symphonie‘s programme to members of the audience. The story told by the Fantastique is literally and figuratively “fantastic,” but the programme does not make the music more or less beautiful. Later, in the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) wrote a programme for Beethoven’s already programmatic Ninth Symphony.

So where do I go from now?

I believe that I should first dissociate absolute music from music that is considered sublime or simply beautiful. The term absolute music is a Procrustean bed. Moreover, I should point out, once again, that absolute music is not necessarily more beautiful or less beautiful than programme music. Second, it seems to me that I should address the question of meaning. If Liszt thought that Hector Berlioz’s instrumental Symphonie fantastique could not be understood without its “programme,” he was obviously expressing doubts as to the intelligibility of the language of tones, unexplained and “unrestrained” by a narrative.

The Greeks: ethos

I am using the word “unrestrained” because from the time the Greeks, Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC) mainly, invented polyphonic music, music was deemed too powerful an art not to be contained. According to Plato’s (424/423 BCE – 348/347 BCE) theory of ethos, such power should be restrained.

Text-setting, Affektenlehrer, Empfindsamkeit

It was. In European music, words came to the rescue of tones. Musicians had to set a text to music. Excellent text-setting is exemplified by Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521). Madrigals (songs in the mother tongue: madre) also required careful text-setting. So did the motet. Besides, it was decided at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) that, in polyphonic (music combining many voices) religious music, words would have to be heard clearly. Palestrina’s music is the culmination of transparent polyphonic music.

There were other attempts to contain music. One was the doctrine of the affections (Affektenlehrer) put forward in such works as Johann Mattheson’s (1681–1764) Der vollkommene Capellmeister (The Perfect Chapelmaster), 1739. Theorists suggested ways of arousing certain feelings, ethically-acceptable feelings.

I should also mention the empfindsamer Stil[3] (sentimental style) or Empfindsamkeit an “important movement occurring in northern German instrumental music during the mid-18th century and characterized by an emphasis upon the expression of a variety of deeply felt emotions within a musical work.”

DALHAUS: absolute music

I could therefore walk my reader through various opinions on the subject of absolute music, but without profound analysis. A review is a review. However, for the purposes of this post, I think it may be useful to return to the Greeks and note, as did Plato, that music is an extremely powerful art, except that it does not need to be restrained. It could be that the idea of “absolute music” was yet another attempt, probably a mostly unconscious attempt, to contain purely instrumental music. Could one accept unbridled “intimation[s] of infinity?”

Dalhaus does not discuss programmatic music. His book is about the “idea of absolute music.”

In the nineteenth century, music had been emancipated from words, but I believe that doubt still lingered concerning the acceptability of music without words, hence the lengthy debate about the idea of absolute music, the debate Dalhaus chronicles so accurately and in a most eloquent manner. The finest minds of Germany, including Nietzsche, had something to offer to this debate. But the most influential work was Eduard Hanslick’s Vom Musikalisch-Schönen (On the Beautiful in Music), published in 1854. Hanslick addressed the je-ne-sais-quoi that can make music so beautiful and, by extension, so powerful.

MEANING IN MUSIC: a language above language

Yet, I believe music can be “an intimation of infinity,” although less loftily said.  At any rate, the debate over absolute music has very real merits. For instance, such a debate emphasizes the undeniable and frequently-expressed fact that music is a “language above language,” a language that tells the otherwise ineffable and might therefore be more meaningful than other languages, national languages.

But rare are those who can compose transcendental music and rare are those who can perceive it as such. In his Review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (p. 238), E. T. A. Hoffmann writes that “[r]omantic sensibility is rare, and romantic talent even rarer, which is probably why so few are able to strike the lyre that unlocks the wonderful realm of the infinite.”

The debate also emphasizes that music is not a laissez-faire. Music has its grammar: harmony, counterpoint, themes, Berlioz’s idée fixe, phrases, periods, etc. And music also has its forms: the sonata, the concerto, the symphony, the quartet, cantatas, oratorios, operas, hymns, not to mention the humble song, sometimes so haunting and evocative, etc.

As for the distinction between self-referential music, called “absolute music,” and “programme music,” it may be best to look upon it as yet another step in the history of music. The emancipation of music from words was like a mini-revolution; a debate was unavoidable.

Words do not make music more or less beautiful than instrumental music. And if words do at times make it more meaningful, music can be meaningful in its own way and, at times, more meaningful than national languages, with or without words. Music speaks its very own language. Truth be told, the human voice is also an instrument, and one of the finest. What about the Ninth Symphony’s Choral movement, Bach‘s Mass in B minor, his many cantatas, Mozart’s Requiem, Henry Purcell ‘s Dido and Æneas? Each time I hear Dido’s Lament: the “Remember me,” I have to stop and listen.

The “ineffable”

There is more to say, names to name and persons to quote, such as Hanslick, Wackenroder, Tieck, Feuerbach, Wittgenstein, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, but it could be stated that Carl Dalhaus’s Idea of Absolute Music is about that undefinable dimension of music, that undefinable dimension so often called ineffable, an ineffable that stems and touches an infinity-within (the term is mine).

In short, meaning in music does not call for a programme, except for operas. When words are used, words the audience does not understand, the language of tones might require the support of a translation or that of a programme. Yet, the language of tones has/is its own meaning.

The word ineffable has long been attached to exquisite music, and it would be my opinion that the conversation will continue and may, in fact, never end.

 

[1] Carl Dalhaus, Roger Lustig, translator, The Idea of Absolute Music (London: the University of Chicago Press, 1989).

[2] David Charlton, ed. and Martin Clarke, translator, E. T. A. Hoffman’s Musical Writings (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 238.

[3] “empfindsamer Stil.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 13 Oct. 2011.
https://www.britannica.com/art/empfindsamer-Stil

Henry Purcell (c. 10 September 1659 – 21 November 1695)
Dido’s Lament (Dido and Æneas) 
Simone Kermes soprano
The New Siberian Singers
 
 

Greek vase with muse playing the phorminx, a type of lyre

Greek vase with muse playing the phorminx, a type of lyre

© Micheline Walker
14 October 2011
WordPress

 

 
 
 
 
 

Voltaire’s Candide, Part 2

15 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Age of Enlightenment, Great Works

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Tafelrunde

Tafelrunde in Sanssouci (Voltaire to the left, purple, next to Casanova, red lapels), Adolph von Menzel, 1850 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Quotations From Candide

“It is demonstrable,” said he [Dr Pangloss], “that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end. Observe, that the nose has been formed to bear spectacles—thus we have spectacles.” (1)

“The bayonet was also a sufficient reason for the death of several thousands.” (3)

“The Best of all Possible Worlds”

Click on the following link. It leads to a video that sums up Candide.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/63104/best-of-all-possible-worlds

According to Dr Pangloss, a follower of Leibniz, humans live in “the best of all possible worlds,” (see The Best of all Possible Worlds, Wikipedia), where everything is made for an end and all effects have a cause. There is therefore “sufficient reason” for everything that happens, so “nothing happens by pure chance.” (See Sufficient Reason.)

According to Leibniz’ Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal (Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil), published in 1710:

“nothing ever comes to pass without there being a cause or at least a reason determining it, that is, something to give an a priori reason why it is existent rather than non-existent, and in this wise rather than in any other. This great principle holds for all events, and a contrary instance will never be supplied: and although more often than not we are insufficiently acquainted with these determinant reasons, we perceive nevertheless that there are such.” (Theodicy, p. 148.) (See Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Wikipedia.)

Theodicy is Gutenberg.pdf ←
Theodicy is Gutenberg [EBook #17147]

According to Britannica:

“Best of all possible worlds, in the philosophy of the 17th–18th-century philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the present world of monads (infinitesimal psychophysical entities) coordinated in preestablished harmony. Among all possible worlds that God could have created, his actual choice of one over the others required a “sufficient reason,” which, for Leibniz, was the fact that this world was the “best”—despite the existence of evident evils, for any other “possible world” would have had evils of its own sort of even greater magnitude. Had it lacked a sufficient reason to explain its existence (and implicitly its contingency), the world for Leibniz would have existed of necessity. Voltaire’s Candide (1759) was a satirical rejection of Leibniz’s optimistic view of the world.”[1]

candideouloptimi00volt_0035

candideouloptimi00volt_0099

Illustrations by Adrien Moreau (Photo credit: Internet Archives)

The Plot

The plot of Candide retells John Milton‘s Paradise Lost. Candide is kicked out of the castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, a “terrestrial paradise” (beginning of chapter 2), because he has kissed Cunégonde, the Baron’s daughter. Candide is the illegitimate son of the Baron’s sister and is therefore considered inferior to Cunégonde. Later, in Uruguay and in Constantinople, the Baron’s son will express the same view. 

After he leaves the Baron’s castle, Candide is drafted into the Bulgarian army. It seems to be in Holland. Candida is flogged by the Bulgarians and would be put to death, were it not for the Bulgar King’s last-minute intervention. Candide is not worth killing.

The Anabaptist

There is no end to Candide’s trials and tribulations. He does, however, meet an Anabaptist, one who baptizes again, who looks after him, houses him and becomes his teacher. We are in Holland. Dr Pangloss surfaces and all three, Candide, the Anabaptist and Dr Pangloss, leave for Lisbon and arrive just in time for the earthquake and tsunami. (See 1577 Lisbon earthquake, Wikipedia.) The Anabaptist is drowned by a bad sailor. Virtue doesn’t pay.

In fact, everything goes amiss. Candide is wounded but Dr Pangloss remains the philosopher that he is. The Bulgar King would not have found him worth killing. 

“This concussion of the earth is no new thing,” answered Pangloss. “The city of Lima, in America, experienced the same convulsions last year; the same cause, the same effects; there is certainly a train of sulphur underground from Lima to Lisbon.”
“Nothing more probable,” said Candide; “but for the love of God a little oil and wine.” (5)

images

Dr Pangloss is the victim of an Inquisition‘s auto-da-fé (an act of faith) Candide is whipped. During an auto-da-fé, humans were burned alive. However, Dr Pangloss is hanged because it is raining.

The Inquisition is, of course, an instance of fanaticism. However, contrary to other philosophes, Voltaire believed in God. In 1778, the year of his death, he was initiated into Freemasonry, a fraternity, at the Paris Lodge called “Les Neuf Sœurs” (the Nine Muses). Benjamin Franklin accompanied him.

Enslavement

In Lisbon, Candide is found by Cunégonde who asks an Old Woman to fetch him. I have not found a reference to Freemasonry in Candide. Freemasons were active abolitionists as were Quakers and Cunégonde is a sex-slave, usually the worst possible fate. She belongs to a Jew and an Inquisitor and is unlikely to be staving off their advances, as she claims. She is not free to do so.

At this point in the novel, Cunégonde and the Old Woman tell their stories. Candide has an outer-frame, or story, i.e. Candide’s search for his beloved Cunégonde. But it also has inner-stories. We learn that the Old Woman lost a buttock when starving Turks spared the life of captured women by slicing up one buttock and eating it. In Candide, women are raped, disembowelled, mutilated, and sometimes quartered. The Baroness is quartered.

Religions

Voltaire shows no mercy towards organized religions. They are human institutions and fallible. Even his ‘innocent’ Candide kills three men: the Jew, the Inquisitor and the Baron’s son, a Jesuit, SJ. He must therefore flee, just as Voltaire fled to avoid being imprisoned.

When, at long last, Candide finds Cunégonde, she is in Constantinople, the birth place of Christianity, conquered by Ottoman Turks in 1453, but she has become ugly. This is not the best of all possible worlds. The world is as described by Martin, the philosopher Candide meets in Suriname and befriends. They cross the Atlantic together and Martin spends his time negating Dr Pangloss’ belief that this is the best of possible worlds. In fact, this is an ugly world and Candide’s dream does not come true, at least not entirely.

Candide, who became very rich in El Dorado, still has enough money to buy back enslaved characters and to purchase a little farm. In the end, however, several characters reappear: Pangloss and the Baron’s son have not died. Moreover, Paquette, the Baroness’ suivante, and Friar Giroflée suddenly join the group in Constantinople. Ever the dramatist, Voltaire is playing with his characters.

These resurrections are both puzzling and reassuring. They are somewhat surreal. Candide will marry Cunégonde, despite her brother’s objections. Although the Baron’s son escaped death and has nothing left, he still thinks his sister is superior to Candide and opposes their marriage. He hasn’t grasped the notion of equality.

Candide contains reassuring instances of loyalty. Cacambo, Candide’s valet, remains loyal to his master. There are redeeming factors.

Leibniz is proven (mostly) wrong

Leibniz is proven mostly wrong, but our characters have learned that they should stay put and cultivate their garden. That is the best humans can do in a world shaken by natural disasters and inhabited by intolerant individuals who persecute and kill one another in the name of a religion.

The Dervish and the Old Man

At the end of the novel, our characters go and visit a dervish, the best dervish in Turkey, who tells that it does not matter that the world is an evil world.

“In the neighborhood lived a famous dervish who passed for the best philosopher in Turkey; they went to consult him: Pangloss, who was their spokesman, addressed him thus: “Master, we come to entreat you to tell us why so strange an animal as man has been formed?”
“Why do you trouble your head about it?” said the dervish; “is it any business of yours?”
“But, Reverend Father,” said Candide, “there is a horrible deal of evil on the earth.”
“What signifies it,” said the dervish, “whether there is evil or good? When His Highness sends a ship to Egypt does he trouble his head whether the rats in the vessel are at their ease or not?”
“What must then be done?” said Pangloss.
‘Be silent,’ answered the dervish.”
“I flattered myself,” replied Pangloss, “to have reasoned a little
with you on the causes and effects, on the best of possible worlds, the
origin of evil, the nature of the soul, and a pre–established harmony.”
At these words the dervish shut the door in their faces.
(Candide, p. 95 – 96)

They meet an old man on their way home and asked about a mufti who has been killed and other victims. The old man knows nothing about these events. He invites the group and he and his children serve them delicacies. They enjoy the moment and reflect that the old man is in a better situation than the six deposed and dispossessed monarchs Candide and Martin met in Venice.

The old man is a source of inspiration. Candide and his companions decide simply to cultivate their garden.

RELATED ARTICLE

Voltaire’s Candide, part 1 (12 March 2015)

Sources and Resources
Candide: Internet archives FR
Candide pdf  EN
Theodicy is Gutenberg.pdf
Theodicy is Gutenberg [EBook #17147]
Œuvres philosophiques de Leibniz (BnF) FR
Œuvres philosophiques de Leibniz (BnF) FR

The Story

Voltaire’s Candide, part 1 (12 March 2015)

The Cast

Cunégonde (the woman Candide loves)
The Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh (Cunégonde’s father)
Candide (the illegitimate son of the Baron’s sister)
Dr Pangloss (Candide’s mentor: who believes this is “the best of all possible worlds”)
Cacambo (Candide’s loyal servant, a zanni of the commedia dell’arte)
The Old Lady
Martin (the Old Philosopher, the opposite of Pangloss)
Paquette (suivante to the Baroness)
Giroflée (a friar)
etc.

With kind regards to everyone ♥
____________________
[1] “best of all possible worlds”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 14 mars. 2015
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/63104/best-of-all-possible-worlds>.

images© Micheline Walker
15 March 2015
WordPress

Voltaire’s Candide, Part 1

12 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in Age of Enlightenment, France, Great Books

≈ 8 Comments

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Tafelrunde

Tafelrunde in Sanssouci (Voltaire to the left, purple, next to Casanova, red lapels), Adolph von Menzel, 1850 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Voltaire the celebrity, but…

A favourite guest of celebrities
Wit, his chief quality

Voltaire lived in a castle, le château de Ferney and befriended Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, and other royals and dignitaries. For instance, in the above image, he is at Sanssouci  [literally “without worry”], a castle owned by Friedrich der Große who was an admirer of François-Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire. The artist is Adolph von Menzel (8 December 1815 – 9 February 1905). However, do not expect an example of this decorum in Voltaire’s Candide.

His indomitable wit and his pen were Voltaire’s chief weapons. He rarely went unnoticed. The French call this présence. However, he was forever running to escape the Bastille. 

Casanova
From lair to lair: “traduit de l’Allemand”

Next to Voltaire, at the round table (Taflerunde) is Casanova, the Chevalier de Seingalt (pronounced Saint-Galle) (2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798), the famous Venitian womanizer, but a person who lived among princes and wrote the history of his life, L’Histoire de ma vie (See Casanova, Wikipedia.)

Voltaire published his Candide under a pseudonym, that of Mr. le Docteur Ralph, and claimed the novella had been translated from German, “traduit de l’Allemand.” The frontispiece (cover) of the first edition of Candide, published in 1759, is the work of Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune. Voltaire was protecting himself.

Voltaire_and_Diderot_at_the_Café_Procope

At Café Procope: at rear, from left to right: Condorcet, La Harpe, Voltaire (with his arm raised) and Diderot. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Background: Lazarillo de Tormes

a picaresque novel
a pícaro
Lazarillo de Tormes (1554)
a Bildungsroman

Voltaire’s Candide is a novella consisting of thirty (30) chapters and published in 1759. It has been described as a picaresque novel. The word picaresque is derived from a Spanish novella entitled La Vida de un pícaro (The Life of a Rogue; short title) or La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of his Fortunes and Adversities), by Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). In picaresque novels, characters move from place to place.

The novel is also considered a Bildungsroman or a coming of age novel. In this regard, Voltaire’s Candide resembles Henry Fielding‘s Tom Jones (The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling), 1749. Henri Fielding’s Tom Jones is characterized by obliqueness because Tom, a “foundling,”[1] has no lineage, which gives him a degree of anonymity and impunity. As a Bildungsroman, Voltaire’s Candide has also been associated with Laurence Sterne‘s Tristram Shandy (a Bildungsroman), 1759 – 1767 (9 volumes).

As an oblique novel, Candide has affinities with Montesquieu’s  Persian Letters (Lettres persanes) (1721). Montesquieu’s Usbek and Rica, his two Persians, are foreigners and may therefore say anything with impunity. Tom Jones is an “illegitimate” son and a foreigner of sorts. Moreover, Candide invites comparison with Blaise Pascal‘s Lettres provinciales (1656-1567). (See Lettres provinciales, Wikipedia.) Both works feature naïve characters.

Candide1759

Candide, ou l’Optimisme, 1759

key sentences

Candide is Voltaire’s answer to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz‘ optimism. It has a second title: Candide, ou l’Optimisme. Key sentences and concepts are:

Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes. (All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.)
Il faut cultiver son jardin. (One must cultivate one’s garden.)
There is a cause for each effect.

The Cast

Cunégonde (the woman Candide loves)
The Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh (Cunégonde’s father)
Candide (the illegitimate son of the Baron’s sister)
Dr Pangloss (Candide’s mentor: who believes this is “the best of all possible worlds”)
Cacambo (Candide’s loyal servant, a zanni of the commedia dell’arte) 
The Old Lady
Martin (the Old Philosopher)
Paquette (suivante to the Baroness)
Giroflée (a friar)
etc.

The Story

We are in Westphalia. Candide, the illegitimate son of the Baron Thunder-ten-tronchk’s sister, is kicked out of Paradise when he kisses Cunégonde, the Baron’s daughter. (1)

Candide leaves and is made prisoner by Bulgarian soldiers who flog him and are about to execute him when the Bulgar King arrives and saves Candide whom, he says, is not worth hanging. (2)

In Holland, Candide meets an Anabaptist who looks after him, provides him with a shelter and becomes his teacher. (3) Dr Pangloss, Candide’s mentor at the Baron’s, appears unexpectedly. He caught smallpox and is pockmarked. He tells Candide that everyone has been killed, including Cunégonde. (4)

They leave for Lisbon but are shipwrecked during an earthquake and a tsunami (the 1755 Lisbon earthquake). A sailor lets the Anabaptist drown. Candide is wounded but he and Dr Pangloss survive. (5)

In Lisbon, Dr Pangloss is hanged by the Inquisition and Candide, spanked. (6) Cunégonde watches the auto-da-fé (act-of-faith) and recognizes Candide. An old woman is sent to fetch Candide. (7) Cunégonde is owned by a Jew and an Inquisitor, (8) but staves off their advances, she says. Candide kills both men. (9)

They flee to Buenos Aires. (10) The old woman, the daughter of a pope and a princess, tells how she lost one of her buttocks. (11-12). In Buenos Aires, the Governor falls in love with Cunégonde. (13) Candide and Cacambo continue to flee the Inquisition and arrive in Paraguay where they find Cunégonde’s brother, a Colonel, who has not died. (14) The Colonel will not let Cunégonde marry Candide who belongs to an inferior class. Candide kills him. (15)

Candide and Cacambo carry on but are captured by Oreillons and nearly eaten. They are spared because they are enemies of the Jesuits. A river propels them into El Dorado or Paradise. In El Dorado, there is no religion, just Deism, but they leave. Sheep, laden with treasures, guide them above mountains. They think they will be able to take Cunégonde back. (17 – 18) On their way to Suriname, they lose their sheep and much of their riches (jewels, etc.). However, Cacambo is sent to buy Cunégonde back while Candide and Martin, a poor philosopher, sail for Venice (19).

During the trip across the sea, Martin tells his philosophy. It is diametrically opposed to that of Dr Pangloss. (20 -21) They stop in Paris where Candide falls prey to various crooks, cheat on Cunégonde and gets in trouble. He has to flee. (22)  As they, Candide and Martin, pass England, they see an admiral who is being executed because he lost a battle. (23)

In Venice, they find no sign of Cunégonde and the old woman, but meet Paquette, the baroness’ suivante, and Giroflée, a friar. (24) They also visit with a man who claims to be happy, the Pococurante.(25) It’s Carnival time in Venice. While they are having dinner with six dethroned and impoverished monarchs, Cacambo surfaces. (26)

Cunégonde is a slave in Constantinople and has grown ugly. Among the galley slaves in the boat taking them to Constantinople, Candide, Martin and Cacambo recognize Pangloss and the son of the Baron. They have not died. They are bought back. (27) Pangloss tells how the Inquisitors failed to kill him. Similarly, the young Baron was unskillfully killed by Candide and is still alive. (28) Candide buys Cunégonde back and is repulsed.

He will marry her nevertheless, despite the young Baron’s objections. (29) They buy a piece of land and start cultivating their garden. Paquette and friar Giroflée also  reappear.  All will cultivate the garden. (30)

Sources and Resources

Candide (Wikipedia)
Candide (summary) EN
Candide (incomplete text) Internet Archives EN
Candide (incomplete text) Gutenberg [EBook #19942] EN
Candide (complete text) literature.org EN
Candide (complete text) Internet Archives FR
Candide (complete text) Ebooks gratuits FR
Candide Google Books
Candide (résumé) FR
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1 July 1646 – 14 November 1716), Wikipedia

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[1] French cinematographer François Truffaut produced L’Enfant sauvage, about a feral child (The Wild Child).

Leonard Berstein conducts his Candide Overture (1956)

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© Micheline Walker
12 March 2015
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