Candide: or, Optimism

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According to many scholars, Voltaire (pen name for Francois Marie Arouet) was the embodiment of the Enlightenment. Born in Paris is 1694, he was well educated by the Jesuits, studying law prior to turning to writing as a profession. His lampoons and satires won him fame and infamy; he was imprisoned and exiled at various times for his writing. He was forced into exile from France to England; later, he was invited to work for Frederick the Great in Berlin (politics and his reputation blew rapidly in the ever-changing winds of Europe). Voltaire wrote "Candide" shortly after this period, when he had moved to Geneva. In 1778, the year of his death, he returned to Paris, a triumphant celebrity - many of his ideas served to strengthen the movements that would eventually culminate in the French Revolution.

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When we observe such things as the recrudescence of fundamentalism in the United States, the horrors of religious fanaticism in the Middle East, the appalling danger which the stubbornness of political intolerance presents to the whole world, we must surely conclude that we can still profit by the example of lucidity, the acumen, the intellectual honesty and the moral courage of Voltaire.
A. J. Ayer

Author Bio

Voltaire (Fran ois-Marie Arouet) (1694-1778) was one of the key thinkers of the European Enlightenment. Of his many works, Candide remains the most popular. Peter Constantine was awarded the 1998 PEN Translation Award for Six Early Stories by Thomas Mann and the 1999 National Translation Award for The Undiscovered Chekhov- Forty-three New Stories. Widely acclaimed for his recent translation of the complete works of Isaac Babel, he also translated Gogol's Taras Bulba and Tolstoy's The Cossacks for the Modern Library. His translations of fiction and poetry have appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, Harper's, and Paris Review. He lives in New York City.