Candide, or Optimism

Introduction

Voltaire published the short novel anonymously in 1759; it appeared in several cities at once and was banned within weeks. In thirty brief chapters the naive Candide is driven out of a Westphalian castle and through wars, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, an auto-da-fé, a shipwreck and the ideal land of Eldorado, while his tutor Pangloss insists that all is for the best. The target is the optimism associated with Leibniz and with Alexander Pope. The book ends with Candide’s answer to Pangloss: “we must cultivate our garden.” It is among the most widely read works of the French Enlightenment.

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Connections

Criticizes

• Theodicy1710 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

More works by Voltaire

• 1734Philosophical Letters (Letters on the English)