Voltaire: French poet, dramatist, satirist, historian, and philosopher

Voltaire

Pseudonym of François Marie Arouet ( 1694-1778). French poet, dramatist, satirist, historian, and philosopher, famous for his skepticism, his enmity to organized religion, fanaticism, intolerance, and superstition (attacked under the slogan Écrasons l'infâme!), his biting wit and his prejudices, his personal vigor in spite of chronic ill health, his clever and swiftly moving philosophic tales, and his contributions to the objective study of history. His dramatic works, chiefly neo-classical in form, include Oedipe ( 1718); Zaïre ( 1732); Alzire ( 1736); Mahomet, ou le Fanatisme ( 1742); Mérope ( 1743); Sémiramis ( 1748); L'Orphelin de la Chine. Among his polemic and philosophic writings are Lettres sur les Anglais, attacking what he regarded as Shakespeare's faulty dramatic construction and poor taste, while praising other aspects of English life and thought; Lettres Philosophiques ( 1734); Traité de Métaphysique; Epitre à Uranie and Discours en Vers sur l'Homme ( 1738), philosophical poems; Poème sur le Désastre de Lisbonne; Poème sur la Loi naturelle; Traité sur la Tolérance; Dictionnaire Philosophique Portatif ( 1764); Sermon des Cinquante; Le Philosophe ignorant ( 1766). Of his historical works, the greatest are considered to be Histoire de Charles XII ( 1731); Le Siècle de Louis XIV ( 1751); Essai sur les Moeurs et l'Esprit des Nations ( 1753-1756), regarded as the first history of civilization; Le Pyrrhonisme de l'Histoire ( 1768). The best-known of his philosophic tales, which became the most popular of his works in later times, are Le Monde Comme il va; ZADIG ( 1748); Micromegas ( 1752), often compared to Gulliver's Travels; L'Ingénu ( 1757); Candide ( 1759), the most famous of all his works.

Outstanding among his poetry are La Henriade ( 1728-1730), an epic on the period of Henry IV; Le Temple de Goût ( 1733), a satire believed to have been inspired by Pope Dunciad; and La Pucelle ( 1762), a burlesque on Joan of Arc. He also wrote numerous light and witty verses on a variety of occasions.

Voltaire, one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of thought, lived a turbulent life, constantly being arrested and exiled because of his unorthodox ideas, displeasing to political and religious authority of his time, and his merciless satire. He first made his reputation as a dramatist, but after being beaten and imprisoned by an offended noble, he went to England for a time. There he came under the influence of Pope and Swift, whom he met, of the ideas of Newton and Locke, and of English political ideals; as a result of this visit, he introduced the plays of Shakespeare into France on his return, although in time he came to regard Shakespeare's influence on the drama as deplorable. Later Voltaire was banished again from France because of his Lettres Philosophiques and took refuge first with Mme du Châtelet at Cirey and then in Holland. After a correspondence with Frederick the Great, the author was invited to Prussia, where he stayed at the monarch's court for three years until, in 1753, the two men became estranged. Then Voltaire retired to Ferney, and for nearly all the rest of his life he lived there at ease, writing treatises which violently denounced the cases of intolerance and injustice that came to his attention, quarreling with J. J. Rousseau, the Roman Catholic Church, and Calvinism, and winning fame all over Europe. When he returned once more to Paris, just before his death, he was honored as a great man and entertained so sumptuously that it is said he died of exhaustion. In 1791, after the French Revolution, on which he had an important influence, his ashes were placed in the Pantheon.

The name Voltaire is simply an anagram of Arouet L. I. (le jeune).